Analyzing Rhetorical Situations

1. Analyzing Rhetorical Situations TS English/Fall 2013

2. What is Context? What? What is it? Text • Up to now, we have only been asking “what” questions of the text itself • What is academic writing and what are its central components? • What is its argument? Claim? Analytic points? • What is its line of inquiry? • Context: To make appropriate writing choices based upon a critical understanding of audience, voice, genre, and rhetorical situation.

3. What is Context? Author Audience Text Situation • This is what it looks like to assess context. • A “Rhetorical perspective” asks us to take a larger look at the situation of writing and the relationships within it. • How and why does the text “work” in this context?

4. What is Context? Author Audience Text Situation • Situation (Why is this writing happening in the first place?) • Author= “voice” (Who do you want to come across as? What tone or authority will work best in this context?) • Audience (Who is the target of this writing? How can it be crafted to best engage that audience?) • Text = “genre” (What are the “rules” of this type of writing?)

5. The Context of Texting Dood. Thrs a party 2nite! :) You Your BFF TXT There is a party! • Situation (There’s an awesome party. And your friendship is solid) • Author= “voice” (You are a fun person who cares about the happiness of her friends. You like your friends and you want them to know it.) • Audience (Your friend would make this party even more awesome and you want her to go. You can best express this by striking a breezy, straight to the point, but enthusiastic tone.) • Text = “genre” (Texts are limited to 160 characters and, thus, make use of multiple forms of abbreviation. Mastery of “txt speak” makes you sound cool)

6. The Context of Essay Writing In this essay, I will argue… You Your Teacher Essay Class is Hard! • Situation (This is an introduction class in sociology. The writing is a part of how you are proving your “mastery” of the material and impacts your grade) • Author= “voice” (You are a serious student who has been paying attention and who is engaged in the material. You want to sound as though you are taking it seriously and giving it the thought that would make you stand out as a student.) • Audience (Your teacher’s expectations are that you will engage the lessons and critical perspectives of the class /discipline in your writing.) • Text = “genre” (Essays are argumentative and evidence-based. In this class, “evidence” has largely been statistics and other empirical data.)

7. What happens when you mess up? I sound like I don’t know how to do this work In my opinion, love conquers all… Hasn’t she been paying attention? You Your Teacher Essay Class is Hard! • Situation (This is an introduction class in sociology. The writing is a part of how you are proving your “mastery” of the material and impacts your grade) • Author= “voice” (Your voice here suggests that you don’t know how to “speak” like a sociologist and that you haven’t learned the mode of thinking necessary) • Audience (Your teacher expects you to be versed in this material. Defying her expectations will certainly have consequences for your grade.) • Text = “genre” (Essays are argumentative and evidence-based. But in taking such an “opinion-based” approach, you have broken the “rules”.)

8. For Paper 2.1 Use your analysis to: • Identify the “situation” and/or “purpose”: • Why is the writer writing in the first place? • What is the writing supposed to achieve? • Who is the writing aimed at? • Identify the “strategies”: • How is the writing crafted to fit the needs and expectations of the situation? • What strategies does the author use to achieve her goals?

9. For Paper 2.1 • Make a claim about the relation between the two: • How do the strategies used fit to the situation? • How is the paper crafted with a particular audience or problem in mind? • Why does she use certain types of writing given her situation?