Elements of Rhetorical Situations

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/rhetorical_situation/elements_of_rhetorical_situations
.html

There is no singular rhetorical situation that applies to all instances of communication. Rather, all
human efforts to communicate occur within innumerable individual rhetorical situations that are
particular to those specific moments of communication.

An awareness of rhetorical situations can help in both composition and analysis. In the
textbook Writing Today, Johnson-Sheehan and Paine recommend, “Before you start writing any
text, you should first gain an understanding of your rhetorical situation” (12). The rest of this
resource will focus on understanding the rhetorical situation. Once you know how to identify and
analyze the elements of rhetorical situations, you will be better able to produce writing that meets
your audience’s needs, fits the specific setting you write in, and conveys your intended message
and purpose.
Each individual rhetorical situation shares five basic elements with all other rhetorical situations:
1. A text (i.e., an actual instance or piece of communication)
2. An author (i.e., someone who uses communication)
3. An audience (i.e., a recipient of communication)
4. Purposes (i.e., the varied reasons both authors and audiences communicate)
5. A setting (i.e., the time, place, and environment surrounding a moment of
communication)
These five terms are updated versions of similar terms that the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle
articulated over two thousand years ago. While Aristotle’s terms may be familiar to many
people, his terminology more directly applied to the specific needs and concerns of his day. This
resource uses more current terminology to more accurately identify the kinds of rhetorical
situations we may encounter today. But since Aristotle’s work in rhetoric has been so influential,
below is a brief discussion of Aristotle’s terms and how they relate to the terms in this resource
(text, author, audience, purposes, and setting).
https://www.thoughtco.com/rhetorical-situation-1692061

Each of these elements has an impact on the eventual outcome of any rhetorical situation.
If a speech is poorly written, it may be impossible to persuade the audience of its validity
or worth, or if its author lacks credibility or passion the result may be the same. On the
other hand, even the most eloquent speaker can fail to move an audience that is firmly set
in a belief system that directly contradicts the goal the author hopes to achieve and is
unwilling to entertain another point of view. Finally, as the saying implies, "timing is
everything." The when, where, and prevailing mood surrounding a rhetorical
situation can greatly influence its eventual outcome.

Text
While the most commonly accepted definition of a text is a written document, when it
comes to rhetorical situations, a text can take on any form of communication a person
intentionally creates. If you think of communication in terms of a road trip, the text is the
vehicle that gets you to your desired destination—depending on the driving conditions
and whether or not you have enough fuel to go the distance. There are three basic factors
that have the biggest influence on the nature of any given text: the medium in which it’s
delivered, the tools that are used to create it, and the tools required to decipher it:

 The Medium—Rhetorical texts can take the form of pretty much any and every
kind of media that people use to communicate. A text can be a hand-written love
poem; a cover letter that’s typed, or a personal dating profile that’s computer-
generated. Text can encompass works in the audio, visual, spoken-word, verbal,
non-verbal, graphic, pictorial, and tactile realms, to name but a few. Text can take
the form of a magazine ad, a PowerPoint presentation, a satirical cartoon, a film, a
painting, a sculpture, a podcast, or even your latest Facebook post, Twitter tweet,
or Pinterest pin.
 The Author’s Toolkit (Creating)—The tools required to author any form of text
impact its structure and content. From the very rudimentary anatomical tools
humans use to produce speech (lips, mouth, teeth, tongue, and so forth) to the
latest high-tech gadget, the tools we choose to create our communication can help
make or break the final outcome.
 Audience Connectivity (Deciphering)—Just as an author requires tools to create,
an audience must have the capability to receive and understand the information
that a text communicates, whether via reading, viewing, hearing, or other forms of
sensory input. Again, these tools can range from something as simple as eyes to
see or ears to hear to something as complex as sophisticated as an electron
microscope. In addition to physical tools, an audience often requires conceptual or
intellectual tools to fully comprehend the meaning of a text. For instance, while
the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” may be a rousing song on its
musical merits alone, if you don’t speak French, the meaning and importance of
the lyrics are lost.

The Author
Loosely speaking, an author is a person who creates text to communicate. Novelists,
poets, copywriters, speechwriters, singer/songwriters, and graffiti artists are all authors.
Each author is influenced by his or her individual background. Factors such as age,
gender identification, geographic location, ethnicity, culture, religion, socio-economic
condition, political beliefs, parental pressure, peer involvement, education, and personal
experience create the assumptions authors use to see the world, as well as the way in
which they communicate to an audience and the setting in which they are likely to do so.

The Audience
The audience is the recipient of the communication. The same factors that influence an
author also influence an audience, whether that audience is a single person or a stadium
crowd, the audience’s personal experiences affect how they receive communication,
especially with regard to the assumptions they may make about the author, and the
context in which they receive the communication.

Purposes
There are as many reasons to communicate messages as there are authors creating them
and audiences who may or may not wish to receive them, however, authors and audiences
bring their own individual purposes to any given rhetorical situation. These purposes may
be conflicting or complementary.

The authors’ purpose in communicating is generally to inform, to instruct, or to persuade.

Some other author goals may include to entertain, startle, excite, sadden, enlighten,
punish, console, or inspire the intended audience. The purpose of the audience to become
informed, to be entertained, to form a different understanding, or to be inspired. Other
audience takeaways may include excitement, consolation, anger, sadness, remorse, and so
on. 

As with purpose, the attitude of both the author and the audience can have a direct impact
on the outcome of any rhetorical situation. Is the author rude and condescending, or
funny and inclusive? Does he or she appear knowledgeable on the subject on which
they’re speaking, or are they totally out of their depth? Factors such as these ultimately
govern whether or not the audience understands, accepts, or appreciates the author’s text.

Likewise, audiences bring their own attitudes to the communication experience. If the
communication is undecipherable, boring, or of a subject that holds no interest, the
audience will likely not appreciate it. If it’s something to which they are attuned or piques
their curiosity, the author’s message may be well received.

Setting
Every rhetorical situation happens in a specific setting within a specific context, and are
all constrained by the time and environment in which they occur. Time, as in a specific
moment in history, forms the zeitgeist of an era. Language is directly affected by both
historical influence and the assumptions brought to bear by the current culture in which it
exists. Theoretically, Stephen Hawking and Sir Isaac Newton could have had a
fascinating conversation on the galaxy, however, the lexicon of scientific information
available to each during his lifetime would likely have influenced the conclusions they
reached as a result.

Place
The specific place that an author engages his or her audience also affects the manner in
which a text is both created and received. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream”
speech, delivered to a rapt crowd on August 28, 1963, is considered by many as one of
the most memorable pieces of American rhetoric of the 20 th century, but a setting doesn’t
have to be public, or an audience large for communication to have a profound impact.
Intimate settings, in which information is exchanged, such as a doctor’s office or
promises are made—perhaps on a moonlit balcony—can serve as the backdrop for life-
changing communication. 

In some rhetorical contexts, the term “community” refers to a specific group united by
like interests or concerns rather than a geographical neighborhood. Conversation, which
most often refers to a dialog between a limited number of people takes on a much broader
meaning to and refers to a collective conversation which encompasses a broad
understanding, belief system, or assumptions that are held by the community at large.

Stance

Stance can be defined as the attitude that the writer has towards the topic of his or
her message. The stance that you take will greatly determine the tone of your
message and the words that you choose. Notice, for example, how the authors in
the following examples describe the same event that they attended. Their
impressions of the event were very different, and it is reflected in the stance that
they took.