Module 2 – Activity 1

Recognizing a Rhetorical Situation

1. What is Bitzer’s definition of a rhetorical situation?

To Bitzer, it is the situation that calls for the existence of rhetorical discourse. As such, a rhetorical situation is prerequisite for it. However, not all situations can be rhetorical. According to Bitzer, a rhetorical situation is “a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting as actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about significant modification of the exigence.” (Bitzer, 1968). In essence, a rhetorical situation is a combination of people, events, objects, and relations that require immediate action or addressing.

2. What are the different aspects of a rhetorical situation?

The first aspect is exigence. According to Bitzer, it is an “imperfection marked by urgency” – this means that it is a situation, an obstacle, or anything that needs to be changed or addressed. However, not all exigences are rhetorical. Death and natural disasters are most definitely exigences but they cannot be changed, thus they are not rhetorical exigences. Rhetorical exigence requires discourse that can affect positive changes, making it rhetorical. The second aspect is the audience which the rhetoric discourse seeks to influence the decisions and actions of. These people in the audience act as the “mediators of change”. A rhetorical audience isn’t just “hearers or readers”,  they only consist of people capable of being influenced and of being mediators of change. The third, and last, is constraints. Constraints are factors that influence the exigence – they have the power to constrain the decisions and actions needed to modify it. These can be people, events, objects, relations, etc. which are related to the rhetorical situation.

3. Which of the issues you encounter today do you think warrant rhetorical discourse?

A lot of issues in our country warrant rhetorical discourse. One such example is the war on drugs and the issue of EJK. Another is the disputes in Mindanao with the radical Moros.