Finally, after reading the two pieces come up with your own definition of rhetorical situation: where do you see it fitting into your own writing processes?
For this blog post's response to your peers: Provide a specific example of a rhetorical situation broken down into all of its parts. Conclude with a 2-3 sentence detailed explanation about why this is in fact an example of a rhetorical situation. ***Can not use the same rhetorical situation as someone else.***
Due: Thursday, January 15, 2015 by class time.
Vatz has a similar definition of rhetoric as a whole, as being a discourse with some sort of purpose. However Vatz is saying that instead of needing a situation before a rhetoric can be created, that rhetoric is always the situation. His argument is basically saying that even though a situation may influence a writer to write about said topic, the writer will almost always get his information on the situation from other rhetoric, basically a never ending cycle of rhetorical discourse. Although this maintains that writers always write for a reason it's that the reason has changed from a situation to a biased or series of biased rhetorical discourses. I think I would have to agree with Vatz, I feel that unless it is a random occurrence that you happen to witness first hand your situations always include rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteEmma-
DeleteI think it's interesting that you mention rhetoric is a "never ending cycle of discourse", and I like that imagery. While I did not understand the article as much as it appears you do, your comment has helped me digest it a little more, so thank you!
For my rhetorical situation example, I read an article today that discussed protests in the Philippines, which were reactions to the release of the newest Charlie Hebdo issue that depicted Mohammed on the cover. This article provided insight into a differing viewpoint than what seems like the most popular one at the moment, which shed light on Westerner's preoccupation with the West. This article underscored the importance of not just blindly accepting one way of viewing a situation, and the importance of considering others who don't necessarily share the same viewpoint. Thus, the purpose of this article was to raise awareness for those who are suffering because of the damaging remarks against their religion, to present an oppositional viewpoint, and to inform citizens.
I really liked how you concluded your response with that, “unless it is a random occurrence that you happen to witness first hand your situations always include rhetoric.” This implies that rhetoric is EVERYWHERE! For example, if you routinely go to a café to have coffee every week, you always use the bathroom there during your stay because caffeine makes your diuretic causing you to need to go the bathroom. While there is nothing particularly strikingly wrong with the bathroom. You don’t really like it that much. There’s nothing really popping out, demanding to be written but you just decide to write about it anyways in your local magazine. You decide to write that the bathroom, while neat and clean, should have more of a flare to it, maybe painted walls, flowers, paintings, scented soap, colored towels and etc. Even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with the bathroom, you choose to make it into a rhetorical situation anyways. Because why? Because, like you said, situations always include rhetoric, whether it is a significant discourse or not. Rhetoric is everywhere and can be chosen OR created into a rhetorical situation based on the rhetor’s choosing.
DeleteI struggled a lot with this piece (more so than with Bitzer), and so the hesitant definition I give to the question of rhetorical situation is meaning that is created by the rhetor himself, rather than by the situation. The two scholars seem to agree on the definition of rhetoric, as that is not contended; however, Vatz vehemently believes that the rhetor plays a much larger role in the rhetorical process than Bitzer does, which becomes evident when Vatz states “meaning is not discovered in situations, but created by rhetors” (157). The conclusion that I came to after reading both pieces was that both authors put forth very valid points, but it does seem to me that Bitzer placed a lot more emphasis on the surrounding environment of rhetoric than the actual author. Vaz very skillfully noted this omission, and was able to deftly highlight the role of the rhetor in determining what was being discussed. As a result, I find myself in the middle of both arguments, I can see the strengths of both Vatz and Bitzer’s articles. Vatz’s rebuttal of Bitzer’s essential components of rhetorical situation is a complete opposition to everything Bitzer listed: “situations are rhetorical…utterance invites exigence…rhetoric controls the situational response…situations obtain their character from the rhetoric which surrounds them or creates them” (159). Bitzer’s article seemed to me more creative, because it involved thinking about rhetoric from an outside perspective, and considering more than just the rhetoric. Vatz’s response takes into account a very key component (the rhetor), but is lacking in new ideas. Thus, I remain neutral between the two. Rhetorical situation is important to consider because it can help create meaningful rhetoric, or it can help the rhetor understand their own power in the context of rhetorical situation.
ReplyDeleteRhetorical situation is one where the rhetor gives due consideration to his own definition of meaning, while at the same time not discrediting the importance of audience, exigence, and constraints.
Hey Helen, I too had a difficult time deciding which side to be on, Bitzer or Vatz. I felt like Vatz's logic just made more sense to me, but Bitzer had a lot of great points too. Also, I definitely agree with you that the rhetor plays a huge role in Vatz's arguments rather than Bitzer's.
DeleteRhetoric situation example: Over winter break I was starving so I went to Foodland (grocery store in Hawaii) to buy food and when I was at the cash register, the cashier asked me “Would you like to help out the children in The Salvation Army by adding three dollars to your bill?” or something along those lines. The cashier was trying to persuade to me to donate money. This affected me because I would feel guilty if I did not donate money. I then reassured myself that the main reason I was there was to buy food, and that I’m just another college dude running short on money... so I didn’t donate. I feel that this example created a rhetorical situation because the cashier made me think really hard from such a simple rhetoric question.
According to Vatz, he completely disagrees with Bitzer and believes that rhetoric situation and rhetoric are the exact opposite of what Bitzer believes them to be. Vatz states that “I would not say rhetoric is situational, but situations are rhetorical.” In other words, Vatz believes that situations gain their characteristics by the rhetoric in which created them. He expresses how a situation is caused by the “way” people deliver information to the audience and “which” information was chosen to be spoken about. Vatz uses the word “salience” throughout his entire article because he believes that an event is considered a situation once the event is ingrained with salience to the audience. Vatz uses a prime example that displays exactly what he means. To sum it up he said the Cuban Missile Crisis became a crisis because of the acts of the John F. Kennedy and rhetorical creation that took place in the United States. On the other hand, the Russian submarine nuclear base was not a crisis because President Nixon decided not to create one. Vatz talks about how viewing the communication of an event as a choice, interpretation and translation can show that it’s the rhetors responsibility whether or not to create salience. In contrast, Bitzer’s theory doesn’t give much responsibility to the rhetor of what he thinks is important. He believes the situation dictates the rhetorical response rather than letting the rhetor dictate the situation.
ReplyDeleteI see myself agreeing partially with both Bitzer and Vatz because they both have their high and low points. However, I would say that Vatz theory on rhetorical situation helps me understand this process better and it just clicks more in my mind.
Rhetorical situation is important to understand for research and writing because it helps out with knowing what to research and why you are researching specific information. If you don’t really understand the process in which you are writing, then the research might not benefit your writing as much as if you knew exactly what you’re researching and writing about.
For me, situations come from rhetoric because if there is no rhetoric, there is no need for any situation. It is up to the rhetor whether or not to create a situation. This fits into my writing process by letting me determine what ideas are important to write about and explain and what ideas are not so important.
Jason--
DeleteI kind of like that you didn't choose a side between Bitzer and Vatz, and took both of their arguments into account. I agree that both of them have their ups and downs within their arguments, and I too found Vatz' theory to be slightly more comprehensive.
Rhetorical situation example: This one is kind of strange, but I was in my Creative Writing class the other day, and was introducing my piece to my audience (the rest of the class and my professor). My purpose was to explain how my writing fit the writing challenge's requirements, and I had to use rhetorical discourse to do so, in that I had to explain myself, and required responding to from my audience.
According to Vatz, rhetorical situation is slightly different from how Bitzer defined it. While Bitzer defines rhetorical situation as people and things that create exigence that can involves discourse after introduced. Bitzer thinks that rhetor does not exist without the rhetorical situation. Vatz, on the other hand, think that the rhetoric is what defines the situation. Rhetoric is the art of argument and persuasion. I think I agree with Vatz a little more, because his opinion regarding rhetoric seems a little more reasonable and relatable due to his focus on the social construct of rhetoric. Rhetorical situation is important to know and be aware of within the constructs of writing because of the distinct aspects of rhetorical situation that should be incorporated into pieces of rhetoric— exigence, audience, constraints (Bitzer), and subject (Vatz). In order for the rhetorical situation to be sound, these must be included, and it is important to keep this in mind in order to have a valid and reputable argument in this research and writing course. I think that my definition of rhetoric is that the situation is determined by the rhetoric (and the argument should keep audience, constraints, and exigence within) and I should keep these guidelines in mind when forming my own arguments and writings.
ReplyDeleteVatz’s biggest point that he is making in response to Bitzer’s article is that he disagrees with the opinion that the situation itself dictates the writing and other discourse. Both authors have similar definitions of what a “rhetorical situation” is, but to Vatz it means that the situation is defined by the rhetoric. On the Cuban Missile Crisis, the event was not a crisis until the discourse framed it as such. One thing I think that Vatz is trying to say to defend his position is that there are countless events and positions to write about that could be described forever, so the author must choose parts to include in the rhetorical situation. Because of this theory, I agree more with Vatz. Technically, you can find rhetoric anywhere if you are looking for it, but from a writer’s stance you know the situation, and from there can see the rhetoric. You can assume something is a rhetorical situation if that is what you are looking for or what you want it to be, but that does not mean that’s what the author had in mind. Vatz’s view makes more sense to me and will probably help me in my writing more because it is more relatable to me. I see rhetorical situation as focusing on the audience, setting, topic, limitations, and exact point being made with a purpose of argument.
ReplyDelete~Sara~
Delete"You can find rhetoric everywhere if you are looking for it" is a true statement . I was flipping through a magazine today and came across an advertisement for Maybelline. On it, it said “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe its Maybelline.” This uses rhetoric to imply that Maybelline products make you beautiful, and if you don’t use it maybe you’re born with beauty or maybe you’re ugly.
Vatz clearly states that he takes “the converse position of each of Bitzer’s major statements regarding this relationship”, meaning the relationship between rhetoric and situations. Bitzer’s definition is that the situation dictates the discourse, and that the exigence creates the rhetoric. In Vatz’s view, that definition is wrong because it leaves no responsibility to the rhetor. The first half of Vatz’s paper seemed to be his response to Bitzer, and saying why Bitzer was wrong. I found myself siding with Vatz on most of his arguments for one simple reason. His arguments made sense. When Vatz was talking about the difference between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Russian nuclear submarine base, he showed how the rhetor was important enough to change the situation. In the Cuban Missile Crisis’s case, Vatz argues that the crisis was not because of an event, but rather because Kennedy created this mass country-wide crisis by making a speech and deploying ships full of missiles to stop the Russians. The speech and the events that surrounded the speech created the situation. For the Russian nuclear submarine base, there was no crisis because they didn’t use rhetoric to create one. The best example he used in the reading was about the Vietnam War. The war in Vietnam was never an official “war” as the United States Congress never declared war on North Vietnam. Vatz’s best combat against Bitzer saying that the situation comes first is “no one understands or understood the “situation” in Vietnam, because there never was a discrete situation.” Saying that we “won the war” is, as Vatz says, “a declaration of rhetorical determination of meaning.” In that case the rhetoric defined the situation.
ReplyDeleteRhetorical situation is important to know because it is everywhere. Every time you write, you are dealing with a new situation and rhetoric can change the situation. How you perceive a situation, and how you portray what you perceive through rhetoric changes the tone of the situation. Rhetorical situation is using persuasion to either confront a situation or create one.
According to Vatz, a rhetorical situation is something that can be affected by the person writing. This is the opposite opinion of Bitzer, who believes that the response to a rhetorical situation is entirely due to the situation itself. His main argument can be summarized by his disbelief in the idea that a rhetorical situation must precede rhetoric. Although after reading Bitzer’s article, I wasn’t entirely convinced of his opinion, reading this counter-position has me leaning more towards Bitzer’s argument. Vatz, while using educated language, doesn’t do a very good job making his point in my opinion. He makes broad questions when trying to nail down rhetorical situations in practice – “What was the “situation” during the Vietnam conflict? What was the situation of the 1972 elections? What is any historical situation?” However, he doesn’t back it up with a clear definition himself.
ReplyDeleteVatz claims that rhetoric defines the situation, which I think goes too far. A situation can’t be defined by what is said about it, because (as the old saying goes) actions speak louder than words. People could say that the POTUS is Mitt Romney, but that doesn’t make it true. People can stand in a tense room and observe lighthearted aspects about the scene, but that wouldn’t make it any less tense.
So to bring it back to our class, I think it’s important to understand the rhetorical situation first, and then respond to it in an appropriate manner. As far as this class goes, I think I’ll try to understand the happenings around the subject I choose before selecting a topic to write about and certainly before deciding what do say about it. It will be helpful for writing meaningful pieces.
Hey Jules, I thought your opinions on how Vatz did in making his argument strong were very insightful. Using those examples really were pretty solid in demonstrating his possible shortcomings. Would you say that you understood fully what Vatz was saying, because we had pretty different opinions and I was wondering if it were just that or if we had different understandings of his viewpoint.
DeleteSpecific Rhetorical Situation: one of my favorite things to do is listen to and analyze rap music. Rap has many different components for anybody who's not familiar: production, lyricism, cadence, and theme are 4 of the main ones. I will think about one aspect sometimes of an artist or an album, but sometimes I will analyze it as a whole. This is kind of the idea of what music critics try to accomplish, boiling down all of these aspects into a rating typically between 1 and 10. An artist releasing an album has potential to be a rhetorical situation because it can be analyzed, and any set of its properties can be analyzed independently of the whole thing.
“Fortunately or unfortunately meaning is not intrinsic in events, facts, people, or ‘situations’”. This is Vatz expressing his main issue with what Bitzer had to say, also known as “Shots fired.” Vatz and Bitzer both agree on what rhetoric is more or less, the art of persuasion, and more specifically physically represented by a piece of rhetorical discourse. Bitzer asserted that every event has mixture of components that create their own rhetorical situation. Vatz stood on almost the other extreme, saying that rhetors create situations by deciding what events to ADD meaning to by mentioning them. In other words, until an author decides to comment on something, it does not have “presence”. At least this is what I’m getting from Vatz’s perspective (although I have been wrong about 203974 times before). I’m not sure I actually find myself aligning with Vatz more now that we’ve read his perspective. Initially it was hard to visualize his perspective or word it as eloquently as he did when we were talking about reasons against Bitzer’s claim, But now having heard what Vatz has to say I would say that I agree more with his point of view. I think Vatz also has an easier perspective to situate inside of a course, since his philosophy is that the rhetor has more control over what the rhetorical situation is. Since the idea is that Rhetorical Situation and Discourse are tied together it kind of logically concludes that understanding what to argue is as important as understanding how to argue it. Rhetorical Situation is very hard to define and I’m sure I can’t do it as well as Vatz or Bitzer but I’d say that Rhetorical Situation is a set of properties of an entity that an author wants to provide discourse on. My definition I guess follows in Vatz shadow more, giving power to the rhetor. For instance if I want to argue that a piece of music is not fitting to a band’s typical style, or that a song is very staccato, I could do that and those would be two different rhetorical situations. I’m still examining the same entity, but different properties of those entities. This is what rhetorical situation means to me, and it all happens when I decide what to write/think about.
ReplyDeleteFrom my understanding of this reading, a rhetorical situation, according to Vatz, is a "situation" that one has no control over when discussing a specific topic. In fact, Vatz believes that a rhetorical situation does not exist, as he says “I would not say rhetoric is situational, but situations are rhetorical." Him saying this means that rhetoric has no control over how it comes out, so it just happens. Vatz, saying that there isn't such a thing of a "rhetorical situation," saying that it just happens, instantly proves how he differs from Bitzer.
ReplyDeleteI would say that I find myself siding more with Vatz than I do Bitzer for the simple fact that I, too, believe that you have no control over how a "rhetorical" situation happens, they just happen. I think that it is important to point out a rhetorical situation because it is a very important element of not only writing, but society as well. Rhetoric is everywhere, so you need to know what it is and what is going on.
To me, a rhetorical situation is when facts are being presented to an observer, who has little previous knowledge of the given topic, thus, this allows for persuasion.
Im not sure if this would be a good example, but I work at the bank, and at the bank we always try to help customers out by opening secondary accounts, which is actually good because you prevent fraud, but bad because you now have numerous accounts to keep up with. When I got to other banks, different bankers and tellers try to sell me the same thing, without knowing that I do work at the bank. They only give me the pros and never the cons, however, I know both, since as I said earlier, I work at the bank. This to me is rhetoric because I only went to the bank for one reason (to deposit money), yet I was having a conversation about something completely different (opening a secondary account).
Dimitrius,
DeleteI like your definition of a rhetorical situation in it's regards to persuasion and also that you note that rhetoric is everywhere, however I'd also like to add that rhetoric can be used to persuade someone regardless of the amount of knowledge they have on the topic. Oftentimes rhetoric is used to convince people who have vasts amounts of knowledge on a topic such as with scientific debate.
Rhetorical Situation: I love to surf whenever I get the chance and oftentimes when I surf in a new beach, I'll ask a more experienced person how I should go about surfing those particular waves, as every surf break can be a little different. The response that I get will almost always from person to person and this is because they're context in relation to this particular situation is always a little different, whether it was they're surfing experiences, how they were taught, or their own style. This example of rhetorical situation demonstrates that while their response is obviously going to be be based upon the particular break that I'm surfing, however it is also affected by their own personal perspectives on the situation. The rhetoric is clear because the surfer is trying to teach me to surf in a particular way, their way. Thus, if their rhetoric is successful and I agree with them, then I'll come to surf in the way that they told me to do.
I really like the last sentence you typed "I see rhetoric as one of the most important part of the man experience, etc." I like this line because I absolutely agree, since our words are pretty much the main thing that get us through society.
ReplyDeleteIn accordance with Vatz’s theory on rhetoric, rhetoric is the language used by the rhetor in order to create influence. Thus, in this sense Vatz’s general definition of rhetoric is not all that different from Bitzer’s, rather it is in their definitions of rhetorical situation that their views tend to differ. Bitzer believes that rhetoric is born from rhetorical situations, Vatz on the other hand believes that rhetoric creates the rhetorical situation. One such example that he cites is the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Vatz states, “a President dramatically announced on nationwide television and radio that there was a grave crisis threatening the country.” (p.159) This, in combination with increased American troop and governmental movements created the Cuban Missile Crisis. Essentially, Vatz is saying that rhetorical situations are created by the people that respond to them,
ReplyDeleteAnother notable difference in Vatz’s interpretation of rhetorical situation is that he believes that “one never runs out of context” thus, people are forced to arbitrarily choose which facts to leave in, and which to leave out. (p.156) Additionally, Vatz notes that even after the “relevant” facts have been chosen by the rhetor, it is up to the rhetor to interpret the facts that he/she is given.
For this reason I tend to align more with Vatz's interpretation of rhetorical situations because it is inherently more realistic. In Bitzer’s interpretation of rhetorical situation there is no room for the rhetor’s perspective on the situation. This is inherently unrealistic because a situation will always be affected in some way by those who experience it. Thus, a situation may be different, depending on whose perspective it is coming from. This is closely resembles Vatz’s perspective on rhetorical situation as it leaves room for the human element, and its affect on situations.
Ultimately, it becomes clear that rhetorical situation is an extremely valuable element in one’s writing as it allows for you to improve the methods and aspects by which you use to convince your audience. Personally, my belief on rhetorical situation is a midpoint between Bitzer’s and Vatz’s views which is that while rhetorical situation is certainly created by the events that surround it, there are many aspects of a situation that can also be affected by those that respond to it.