I enjoyed Bitzer, Woolf, and Richards.
Bitzer - The Rhetorical Situation
I think Bitzer's understanding of rhetoric is one that, while we have kind of danced around it and everybody has some understanding of the "rhetorical situation," is somewhat unique/new within the context of the rhetoricians we have studied thus far. I think a problem we have encountered, pretty incessantly, is how do we define rhetoric: I enjoyed that Bitzer distinguished persuasive situations from rhetorical ones. I think we kind of, at least in my experience, fall back onto the idea that "Everything is rhetoric," which, while maybe being true, kind of renders the idea meaningless. Rhetoric becomes like the word "thing" which, if devoid of an externally located or experiential context ("this thing" paired with a point of the finger), can literally be anything and is therefore a useless and meaningless term. Bitzer's claim that, for a situation to be rhetorical in nature, a situation must contain an exigence (obstacle or thing to be changed), an audience capable of affecting some kind of change, and some kind of constraint, situates rhetoric within the realm of utility, and, at least loosely, the realm of ethics. Bitzer's arguments also prove that rhetoric only works in discursive and experienced contexts. I liked Bitzer's description of rhetoric as a "mode of altering reality" because I think it works on two levels; the first level is that rhetoric, being used pragmatically, is by its very nature, necessarily trying to effect some change or fulfill some function within the world; and the second level is that rhetoric, once we get into questions of epistemology and whatnot, is affecting the way in which we understand and perceive the world through discursive knowledge making. So, rhetoric changes the world externally and internally, simultaneously, which is pretty cool.
Virginia Woolf - "I am rooted, but I flow" (Waves)
I really like the idea of using fiction rhetorically. I am of the belief that fiction and truth are always intertwined, to varying degrees, and I think that the more literary fiction has to say about its opposite, without imitating it, the more powerful literary fiction can be. Which is why I chose the previous quote. Author's who are rooted in reality, but flow from and away from it, are capable of pretty incredible insight (I like to think, at least). That said, I don't think most fiction can fit within Bitzer's understanding of rhetoric, but I do think an incredibly strong case can be made for the case of A Room of One's Own. I haven't read it in its entirety, but, using Rachel's presentation as the foundation of my argument, I do think that Woolf's choice to write fiction, when asked to write about women in literature, was a rhetorical choice attempting to persuade her audience that women have never had a place in literature, not because of inability, but because of they were never given the chance. I'd imagine her choice was rather powerful, but I have yet to have read the work all the way through, so I can't say.
Richards - "misunderstanding and it's remedies" (Richards on Rhetoric: Selected Essays 1929 - 1974)
Richards and Ogden's "Symbol Theory" was interesting, although not entirely new. The relationship between words and reality is a symbolic one, and, therefore, words without some shared understanding of reality between communicators are meaningless. Words rely on reality for meaning, but the problem, as I understand it, is that people experience reality subjectively and, consequently, said meaning is subject to interpretive difference (that also might be the odd beauty of language), which makes communication an imperfect science. It kind of remind me of what I said previously about the difference between "thing" all by its lonesome in contrast to "this thing" paired with a pointing finger: without the direct connection to the image in an external space (whatever it might be) the word is capable of too diverse of meanings, and becomes, ironically, meaningless. Too much meaning and meaningless are virtually the same: it's like being blinded by too much light versus darkness, either way you're blinded... That said, its nice to have a term for all these ideas (assuming I sorta know what the hell I'm talking about).
As an aside, I found the idea of creating a simpler, more universally accessible, version of english to be a fascinating idea, but I can't imagine it could have gone well. I think adaptability is crucial for the survival of a language, and therefore languages have to grow and get more complex (losing and gaining words rather constantly). Still, the whole language-before-Babel thing, or the idea of a universal language, is, in a lot of ways, appealing, but incredibly problematic: considering how integral language is to culture.
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