Post Bitzer Reflection

Discusion #6

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

Here’s reflecting on what I’ve learned after reading Lloyd Bitzer’s essay and my peer’s initial posts. Rhetoric has been defined for me after this reading assignment. Before this assignment I’ve never given it a thought as to what it meant. One thing that was pointed out to me by Evan Kallas was that rhetoric is always persuasive. This is important to remember, because it helps the reader determine motive when reading a piece of rhetoric.

I’ve also learned that there are three terms linked to Rhetorical situation by Bitzer. These terms are Exigence, Audience, and Constraints. Exigence is the only term that I was unfamiliar with in the beginning. After some research and reading my peer’s posts I learned that exigence means “a need that is pressing or urgent.” Sophia hand in her post proposed that exigence was a challenge to overcome or change, but wasn’t always needed. I disagreed with it not being a necessity. The reason for this is exigence is what prompts the situation which the rhetoric responds too. Adam Helwig Defines this quite well “Exigence in rhetoric is the point in where an action occurs politically or otherwise, that causes someone to act, speak, or write about it.” (Helwig ph.3)

From Aleksei Nechaev’s post I realized that exigence is important for more reasons than being the catalyst for rhetoric. As Nechaev points out it is also used to keep the audience interested in the conversation. This is something that I failed to realize in my initial reading of Bitzer’s essay. Knowing that rhetoric could be used as a tool to keep an audience engaged is useful for a writer to know. Rhetorical situations being akin to a genre has also crossed my attention, this is something to think about because it relates Bazerman’s Activity system to rhetoric in a convenient way. Rhetoric is also similar to speech acts, if it’s not already considered one.