We have already talked about rhetorical situations from Learning Module 2, so we are going to back up a bit and talk about rhetoric more broadly.
There are many MANY definitions of rhetoric. In our textbook, Graves, Corcoran, and Blankenship define it broadly as “the kinds of choices people make both to interpret and create forms of communication” (95).
Rhetoric, then, might be best thought of in the context of our class as a way of thinking.
That is, a way of considering “why do this and not that? What effect would there be if I did this instead? Why did the writer do that? I wonder what purpose that served their argument or narrative by doing that?” and so on. We can call this rhetorical thinking.
As a way of thinking, to formalize it a bit more, we might use rhetorical analysis to take the time to work out our thinking in our writing as a way to understand any object that is written, designed, composed, created, etc. How that object has a purpose of some kind, an audience it hopes to reach, different constraints that the creator was under, unstated ideologies it serves, and ways we can make meaning with that object.
An Example of Rhetorical Thinking and Analysis
One of my earliest memories of being really purposeful in rhetorical thinking was when I was in high school. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) functioned much like texting and some forms of social media function today. AIM was how we communicated with our friends, whereas people who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s may have used a landline telephone.
image of AOL instant messenger logo on desktop background. Photo credit: Brendan Dolan-Gavitt. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/34715712@N00/174054753
One day, a friend of mine showed me a (printed out!) transcript of an AIM conversation between him and his then-girlfriend. He wanted to show me because they were talking about their relationship and though she confirmed that she wanted to stay together, he got a vibe that something was off.
I read it over and because I knew my friend wanted another perspective on it, I paid really close attention to her specific word choice. I remember lots of hedging (or, qualifying what she was saying in ways that left open the possibility that she was not as committed as she claimed) and an indirect writing style that never quite assertively said that she wanted to stay in the relationship.
My interpretation was that she wasn’t feeling him any more. It wasn’t quite working out.
Well, later on, it turned out that my rhetorical analysis I did after reading the transcript and talking with my friend was pretty accurate! They broke up a few weeks later. It wasn’t working. And though she wasn’t ready to tell him that, a close rhetorical analysis gave me and my friend a more evidence-based perspective on how the relationship was going. When they broke up, I think he was less surprised.
Task
As I said earlier on this semester, you all are experts in language and rhetoric and writing already. You’ve done it all of your life. In our class, we are practicing being more aware of our abilities as readers, writers, and communicators so as to keep improving our developing expertise.
Before moving on, share in the comments below an example where you used some rhetorical thinking or a more formal rhetorical analysis in a way that helped you or someone else the way I helped my friend in my example above.
Give me details about what the object you were analyzing was, what you thought about it, and why you thought about it that way. Be specific! To be substantive, make it about 50-100 words.
Once you commented below, click the button below to move on.
There was a scenario where one of my buddies were caught in a scam. He explained the current situation he is in, every single detail. How the scammer kept asking for more money to resolve the problem, however the scammer kept asking for the money in gift cards. I knew from this point that he is being scammed because gift cards cannot be tracked and that they’ll keep asking for more. I then told him that he is being scammed and the money he has given is never coming back. He shed some tears for the money he has lost, and we moved on.
I have a lot of friends online and pretty frequently they will ask for advice on issues they have with their real life friends. Recently one of my friends asked for advice on if she should confront/cut out someone in their life based on past actions and scenarios. She told us about these events in detail and through repeated themes that were present throughout these incidents as a group we decided that this person is definitely narcissistic and toxic and not a good person to hang around. In the end this helped my friend make the decision to try and let the relationship either die out or to end it.
There was a time my friend asked me advice on family issue. He suddenly had a half sibling so he did not know how to react to that. I told him that he should react just as he would if he had a little sibling. Meaning that he should treat her just like a brother would treat her dear sibling, especially with his family issue going on. His mother used to not treat him very well but she tried to make it up by caring and involving herself with him. If she’s trying to reconnect I told my friend that he should take a chance to embrace his blood and dote upon his baby sibling. That was the right call because those siblings have created a bond now.
A few weeks ago I found myself tangled up in a fight between two good friends of mine. They were doing business together and one of them accused the other of cutting him out of his own deal. Being that I am good friends with both of them, I wanted to stay as far out of it as possible. Ultimately I had a separate talk with both of them where I tried to get them to see the situation from the other persons point of view. Thankfully, I think it helped resolve the situation and it is not long behind them.
Within the past few weeks, I analyzed my “friendship” with a “friend” because of the way an argument about the COVID mRNA vaccine panned out. I figured he was being irrational after he tells me I should apologize for saying he is “misinformed” after correcting him by saying the mRNA vaccine in fact uses harmless genetic material from the virus. After analyzing the diction and tone of his texts detailing why I should apologize, I realized that our “friendship” has always been based off a superiority complex he has over me. So, I ultimately cut him out of my life for good.
There was a time where a friend of mine was going through a hard moment. He had broken up with his girlfriend. I didn’t want to get into their business so much but it reached a point where I felt like I had to talk to my friend. I went in and started giving him advice and I guess mentoring him in a way, I believe it has helped him and now she is part of the past and my friend is doing amazing.
There was this one time where my best friend had got a third degree burn on his entire thigh. He was rushed to the hospital almost immediately by his mother. I was only notified of the injury when he was at the hospital and me and my family were freaking out because we were all friends, my parents went really well with his mother and me and my friend went really well. My parents have know his mother for about 21 years and me and my best friend new each other since birth, 16 years. Me and my parents rushed to the hospital to visit and during the whole car ride I was worrying so much. When I got there the leg was all wrapped up and the doctor said he was going to be fine but he will have a long recovery. I was relived when the doctor said that. So I helped him through his recovery which took 2 months and did whatever he needed me too.
Two years ago one of my close friends had gone through a breakup. I noticed that it hit him pretty hard, so I talked to him about it. I gave him advice regarding the past being in the past and moving on from it. I also got him into working out as a way to cope with it and now he has fully recovered from his past relationship.
There was a scenario in which I failed my first college midterm. I just knew I didn’t pass. My professor would just look and eyeball at me when ever she spoke about failing the midterm. I would ask her before she even gave back the papers and she wouldn’t say YES or NO that I passed but her silence said it all. I just knew it.
One time I’ve used rhetorical analysis to see how things were between a friend and his ex girlfriend, as he thought something was amiss in his relationship. While she seemed like she was happier and still treated him mostly the same, it seemed to me like the words she were using to describe her affection for him sounded empty or forced, even though it seemed normal to him. I told him about this, and that it seemed her newfound happiness seemed to be coming from somewhere else. Sure enough, he was being cheated on and she went right to the new guy after the breakup.
There was this one time I was analyzing a friend I had in early high school. He was always negative about everything and never thought positive. I didn’t think this was a good mindset so I gave him some advice and told him that negativity won’t get you anywhere. He eventually learned.
I had a friend that I was very close with for a long time since I was about 8 years old. In the second half of high school, he began talking to people I thought he had nothing in common with. When he was around these people he would talk different and emphasize his similarities to them to become befriend them. This made me feel like he was a sellout who forgot what he truly values in a genuine friendship and I chose to confront him about it. He admitted to doing those things, but would not admit to the fact that this made him untrue to who he was. I did not completely cut him out of my life because I don’t think him acting differently around certain people he is looking to gain approval from makes him a bad person, but I talk to him much less often now.
When i was 12 i accidentally put my best friend in a coma for a couple days. Me and him where playing tag and i accidentally pushed him and he fell and hit his head. My friend was skinnier and smaller than me so i felt extremely guilty. When he got out of the hospital i apologized and told him id wont play as rough anymore and did everything i can to help him out.
There was a time that I was in a complicated which included a boy I was friends with. I had once been attracted to him but, he got a girlfriend before I was able to express that feeling to him. For some reason, at our Marching Band practices he’d always say things to me that I don’t think you say to a friend or a person while you have a partner. He’d always comment on my appearance how pleasant I looked. I didn’t pressure the situation because my school was predominantly white, in a very much suburban town in Connecticut, and I mean I’m black. Then amongst the percussion section in the Marching Band, the seniors were just randomly chatting and he just said “Yeah my type is skinny WHITE girls.” It didn’t hurt my feelings but was it necessary to include that? But, my intuition was right! A relationship wasn’t possible because of my race.
The was an issue in my friend group that involved an argument between around 10 people. It was a pretty stressful event at the time but in hindsight was extremely petty on both ends. Anyway, the two group began to hang out separately and rarely talk during school times so I decided to talk to the two main individuals that had the issue and attempted to have them talk it out amongst each other, in the end my efforts didn’t matter because they still drifted apart after the fact.