The Rhetorical Situation In this video, you ll learn about the rhetorical situation, a framework that you can use to be a more effective communicator. But first, let s talk a little bit about rhetoric. You ve probably heard the term rhetoric before, even if you aren t sure how to define it. For right now, we will define rhetoric as a communicative act of using body, verbal, and/or written language to achieve particular purposes in a given situation. Rhetoric appears all around us: politicians make speeches to voters, advertisements sell products, friends debate the best movies. You ve used rhetoric in your own life even if you weren t aware you were doing it. For example, have you ever attempted to convince a friend to try a new restaurant? Did the friend try the restaurant after you talked? Although you may not have realized it, in this situation you made several choices about what to tell your friend based on what you know about her and what she would find the most persuasive so that she would go eat at the restaurant. That s rhetoric! A rhetorical situation is simply the circumstances in which communication occurs. Effective communicators analyze the rhetorical situation and decide the best way to present their ideas to achieve their purposes. To be a successful communicator, you need to pay attention to specific elements that make up the rhetorical situation. These elements include the writer, the exigence, the purpose, the audience, the text, and the context. The writer is the creator of the communication. The writer may also be referred to as the speaker, author, composer, or producer, depending on the kind of text that they are creating. Writers need to be aware of how their background or reputation may impact their communication. Let s go back to our example of trying to convince our friend to eat at a specific restaurant. In this example, you are the writer. If you have a reputation for finding delicious restaurants, your friend may be more willing to agree to go to the new restaurant. If your last restaurant pick ended with food poisoning, your friend may not trust your opinion as much. The exigence is the imperfection or sense of urgency that compels a writer to communicate. Often the exigence is a situation or a problem that the writer wants to resolve through communicating. Sometimes, the writer needs to create the sense of urgency or exigence for the audience because the audience does not realize that there is a problem. To identify the exigence, ask yourself, Why do I want to communicate in this specific moment? In our example, you and your friend are both hungry, and you do not want to be hungry anymore. Your hunger and your desire to satisfy this hunger are your exigence. Purpose is the reason for a specific communication, or what a writer hopes to accomplish by writing. Often we think the purpose of rhetoric is to persuade, but you may want to explain, inform, or entertain, or you may have an entirely different purpose. To identify purpose, ask yourself, What is my goal? What do I hope to achieve by communicating in this moment? As a writer, you need to have a clear purpose for your work so that your audience can understand and respond in the way that you want. In our example, your purpose is to persuade your friend to eat at the new restaurant. Audience is the recipient of a communication. All communication has an intended audience, even if that audience is just yourself (like journal entries, grocery lists, or notes). Audiences can be very specific or broad. As a writer, it s important to select the appropriate audience to achieve your purpose. What you know about your audience such as their familiarity with a topic, their beliefs, and their preferences will help you craft the most effective message. In the example, your audience is your friend. You know your friend s food preferences, allergies, and her budget. With this knowledge in mind, you will present certain information about the restaurant so that it seems like a place that she would like to eat. Text is the actual communication; it is something that can be read or interpreted to have meaning. Text can refer to alphabetic words, or it can be oral, visual, or gestural (e.g., body language) communication. The particular form that a text takes is known as a genre; there are many genres such as academic essays, emails, music videos, speeches, infographics, and many others. Each genre has typical characteristics, advantages, and limitations (also known as constraints). For writers, the text matters because some forms may be more effective for a specific audience than others. In our example, there are many genres you could use to communicate with your friend, but you may decide to send her a text message because you know that she prefers to text rather than talk on the phone. In a text, you can also easily send her the restaurant menu and positive restaurant reviews, which may help convince your friend to eat at your favorite restaurant. Context is the setting of the communication. The setting includes the time, the location, and the environment. The context can be broad like a particular historical or cultural moment like the United States after the 2016 presidential election or specific like a particular workplace, classroom, or social media platform. As a writer, the context matters because it will impact how your message is received and understood by the audience. In our example, if you try to persuade your friend to eat at the new restaurant after she s just eaten lunch, she may not be inclined to go with you because she s not hungry. All of these elements work together to form the rhetorical situation. No single element is more important than the others, but depending upon the situation you may need to focus on one or some of the elements more than others. However, you will need to take all of these elements into account and to consider how each element influences the others in order to be a successful communicator. For example, how does context influence the text? How does your rhetorical purpose impact who the audience is? When you consider all of these elements together, you can see how complex the rhetorical situation can be. Some rhetorical situations may be relatively simple, like trying to get your friend to eat at your favorite restaurant. Other rhetorical situations may be very complex, such as addressing climate change. You may need to analyze a situation multiple times and to readjust your rhetorical strategy based on your analysis of the rhetorical situation.