Rhetorical situations and genre are very closely related in the sense that one is a part of the other. Bitzer defines rhetorical situations 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 the exigence.” In the most simplest of terms, this means that a problem arrises and there must be some sort of reaction that will modify the situation. Also, keep in mind that every situation has a specific reaction, which is where genre starts to become intertwined with rhetorical situations. Specific genres will call for different audiences, exigences, rhetor, kairos, etc. Bitzer gives the example of the "Gettysburg Adress", the president spoke to his specific audience (American citizens), about a specific problem, at the right time that American wanted to know information, and he also elicited a reaction from the people.
Our understanding of rhetorical situations and genre may help us in our everyday writing because we can find different ways to elicit different responses from specific people. For example, if I wanted to tell a dirty joke: it would probably be on Twitter, because my audience would consist of my peers, as opposed to Facebook where I have my family. It could also help us to recognize instances where we are to be the rhetor or the audience. We will be able to handle this and successfully elicit a genre appropriate response, because of our knowledge of rhetorical situation and genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment