1. Please explain Vatz’s response to Bitzer’s theory of the Rhetorical Situation. Use your own words
INFO FOR HELP
-Vatz theory: “The myth of the rhetorical situation”. Was written as a response to Bitzer’s “rhetorical situation”.
-Vatz refers to Bitzer’s rhetorical situation. As not real. – Bitzer has it backwards. -Situations don’t invite rhetoric. – Rhetoric creates the situation.
-Vatz Definition of rhetoric: The art of linguistically or symbolically creating salience.
Bitzer’s theory of rhetorical situation:
I. Definition of Rhetorical situation: A situation made up of persons, events, objects and relations and an exigence which strongly invites utterance. The situation invites the rhetoric into existence.
-3 components of Bitzer’s rhetorical situation:
1. . Exigence: “an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be. The Exigence in question must be capable of modification.
2. Audience: Must be capable of acting in response to the exigence.
3. Constraints: – Factors both limiting and enabling the rhetor as arguments and appeals are discovered, arranged, and delivered to the rhetorical audience. – Are factors that set a practical limit for a rhetorician during the inventional process. – The Boundaries within which rhetoric is both created and advanced.
A contrast of the Bitzer/Vatz view of Rhetoric.
Bitzer:
1. Rhetoric is situational. 2. Exigences strongly invites utterance. 3. Situation controls the R’s Response. 4. Rhetoric obtains its character from the Situation which generates it.
Vatz: 1. Situations are rhetorical. 2. Utterance strongly invites salience. 3. The rhetoric controls the situational response. 4. Situations obtain there character from the rhetoric that surrounds them or creates them
