Bitzer's Rhetorical Situation

Who is the theorist for rhetorical situation?

Bitzer

What is the key to understanding rhetoric?

Situation

What is the situation key to understanding rhetoric?

Rhetoric is situational and helps to solve a problem in a situation. Rhetoric always indicates situation, although situation doesn’t always indicate rhetoric. It is the situation that calls the discourse into existence

To understand rhetoric, Bitzer says you need to understand…

The historical context in which rhetoric occurs (the situation)

Language

language grows out of a situation to try and solve a problem/alter reality. Beyond speaking, language is a tool to try and physically do something

Is rhetoric speaker centered? (according to Bitzer)

NO, rhetoric is situation centered. The speaker just happens to be a vessel. It is not the speaker or the content but the situation that is the source of rhetoric AND rhetorical criticism

How would Bitzer do rhetorical criticism>

Criticism has to start with the situation. The situation determines if the rhetoric is appropriate.

What are the constituents of a rhetorical situation?

Exigence, Audience, Constraints

Exigence

an imperfection marked by urgency that can be positively modified/assisted by language.

Something has to be wrong and urgent

This definition is very vague

Audience

mediators of change. rhetoric requires an audience that are capable of doing something/only ones who can help remedy the urgent problem. target audience

Constraints

persons, evets, objects, and relations part of the situatio because they have the power to constrain decision/action. Guiderails, you need to avoid pitfalls to ensure effectiveness of speech
ex. culture, audience intelligence

personal constraints

constraints the speaker has on the situation. ex. the speaker is speaking too loudly

What makes a speech rhetorical?

when it is a response to the kind of situation that is rhetorical, in which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation or requirement to create/present discourse

THE SITUATION

Fitting response

discourse, language that fits within the situation (audience, constraints, exigence)

What does exigence have to be?

Exigence has to be located in reality, objective, and publicly observable

Is fiction rhetoric?

Fiction is not rhetoric because there is no real urgency and the situation is not real

Similar, recurring situations (according to Bitzer)…

…call for similar rhetoric. Recurring situations prompt similar rhetorical forms, so you can predict what people might say based on the rhetorical situation

Bitzer’s background

Bitzer was a philosophy student, and during his PhD studies, encountered rhetoric. He wrote a famous essay on rhetorical situation