These are terms that we will encounter throughout the semester whose definitions you should master.
| Basic Terms |
| Discourse Strategic Strategic Discourse Interpreting Rhetoric Rhetorical Situation Rhetorical Act Common Sense Public |
This unit concentrates on your activities as an interpreter of discourse. It provides you a system of vocabulary to help you understand the process that you will use to describe and evaluate strategic discourse.
| Things you should be able to do: | Terms you should know: | Arranged in a system of vocabulary |
| Using vocabulary you learn to analyze strategic discourse | Descriptive Analysis Evaluative Analysis |
Analysis requires both description and evaluation |
| Marshall support for your claims | Claim Proof Analysis |
Well presented claims follow the formula: Claim + Proof + Analysis |
| Analyze strategic discourse as response to situation |
Exigence |
Framework: Speakers strategically call upon their opportunities to overcome the obstacles and confront the long term and/or immediate exigence of the situation. |
| Generate a critique from any of the standards | artistic (aesthetic) effects (effectiveness) truth ethic (moral) |
You select one of these standards in an analysis. |
Because rhetoric is addressed to an audience, so much of evaluation of discourse requires that you understand the character of the audience. The systems of vocabulary here are to enable you to understand the character of an audience and describe it as part of your evaluative tasks.
| Things you should be able to do: | Terms you should know: | Arranged in a system of vocabulary |
| Identify the various audiences for a discourse: | empirical audience mediated audience target audience agents of change constructed audience |
Various audiences become relevant to your differing analysis of the discourse |
| Know how to use one or more of these methods to understand the character of an audience | demographic analysis psychometric analysis cultural analysis elaboration analysis |
Each has its method and ways of describing an audience's characteristics |
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Using that knowledge, answer the following questions:
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Allow you to describe and evaluate the strategies the speaker selects. |
The systems of vocabulary below begin to help you focus upon strategic choices made by the rhetor. Some of the systems allow you to describe those choices; others help you evaluate the choice against the standards you learned above, most importantly effectiveness for a particular audience.
| Things you should be able to do: | Terms you should know: | Arranged in a system of vocabulary |
| Using the list of standard purposes for speaking, identify the purpose(s) of the speaker in the discourse | Creating Experience Altering Perception Explaining Formulating Belief Initiating Action Maintaining Action |
One of more of these general purposes should lead you to formulate the speaker's specific purpose in engaging in discourse. |
| Know how to locate purpose in a discourse | In the message In the rhetorical situation Within a campaign |
to look for purpose in these places |
| Recognize complications of purpose | Multiple purposes Layered purpose Linkage to publics Explicit/implicit purpose |
to describe the speaker's purpose with more complexity |
| Framing | ||
| Identify strategies for framing experience; evaluate their success with audience | Questions Setting Stasis Narratives Root Metaphors |
One or more of these strategies should lead you to formulate the speaker's specific strategy for framing discourse. |
| Idea | ||
| Identify strategies for defining or explaining an idea | Genus/differentia Comparison/contrast By example By detail By origin Negatively Operationally Etymological |
to describe the strategies that he speaker chooses to use |
| Evaluate the strategies for defining or explaining an idea based on these dimensions and your analysis of audience | Identifiability Clarity Precision/ambiguity Level of Detail Relationship to audience experience |
Dimensions of evaluation of strategy using your audience analysis |
| Ethos | ||
| To identify prior sources of ethos | Reputation Appearance Introduction Other elements of context Occasion |
identify prior sources and whether speaker enhances them and/or overcomes their obstacles in his/her discourse |
| To identify the strategies for building ethos contained within a discourse | Identification Social Power Participation |
to identify the approach the speaker takes to take advantage of his relationship with the audience. |
| To identify the persona the speaker assumes toward the audience | persona | To see the relationship the speaker uses to appeal to the audience. |
| To identify the basis of the speaker's authority with the audience | Identification Agent Symbolic |
to understand how the speaker seeks to establish his authority. |