Brian Morrow

Rhetorical situation and Analysis

When writing, a rhetorical situation is a situation in which you adjust your writing so your readers can relate better to it. If I had to explain it to a friend, I would use the example that the Academic Writer gives us. If my friend was to write to me, him having to choose what medium to use to write to me would be a rhetorical situation. The action of choosing which medium to use and going through the process of finding which medium is the most appropriate would be rhetorical analysis.

After analyzing your situation, you can use Aristotle’s three appeals, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. These three appeals help speakers and writers communicate with others. When I write, I think I appeal most to Aristotle’s Logos, the appeal to reason. I will usually try to back up everything I present in a paper with statistics, facts, examples, and sources. I will not say anything that seems illogical unless proven otherwise in multiple sources.

Kairos means it’s the right time for something to happen due to the conditions. Modern concerns with the weblog are that people seem to not realize that it can be viewed by everyone and anyone. People will go and post about their personal life and while there’s always a possibility someone they know, and probably wouldn’t want to see it, will stumble across it.  Voyeurism is the sexual interest in spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other private actions. Relating voyeurism to blogs, people are naturally curious of other people’s lives and what goes in them. Voyeurism is often associated with news and how the public desires information about others. It has become synonymous with information access and the public’s right to know. Voyeurism is the drive behind a lot of the writings associated with the news. The peoples want to see the truth, see others reality, and see excitement all drives the media.

To define “literacy”, Gee chooses to use the term “discourse” to help us understand. When using discourse, he means: “A socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or a social network.” Think of a discourse being an “identity kit”. Whether you’re a teacher or a student, male or female, geek or jock, a counselor, a professional poker player, or a janitor at a school, you’re a part of that discourse. Whatever discourse you’re a part of, you understand and can relate to other people who are in the same discourse.

Gee’s definition of literacy kind of changed my own understanding of literacy. I always associated literacy with only being able to read and write. Now after reading Gee’s definition, I realized there’s a little more to literacy. It’s being able to understand a variety of languages, be it spoken languages or a certain profession.