According Lloyd Bitzer, one of the original thought-leaders in rhetorical situations, a rhetorical situation is defined as the following:
“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.”
Lloyd Bitzer
Grant-Davie expands upon Bitzer’s definition by bringing a fresh perspective to the original definition.
In simple English, a rhetorical situation is the context that surrounds the communicator’s (rhetor’s) message. This discourse includes a speaker (rhetor), an audience, an issue (exigence), and a medium (speech, text, image, etc.).
The article by Sheffield provides some context on how to interpret visual rhetorical situations: analyze the audience, context, and purpose. We can also analyze arrangement, scale, text, color, and other design choices.
In the projects, we have the opportunity to write across various modes. Understanding how to analyze rhetorical situations will not only help us create better projects, but it will help us explain our projects in the rationales.
Good work here, Jacob. You’ve done a nice job explaining rhetorical situations and how you’ll use them in class.