What do Covino and Joliffe list as the major elements of rhetorical theory? The major elements listed are rhetorical situation, the audience, the pisteis or “proofs” and the five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. The pisteis or “proofs” is a mean of persuasion or “appeal.”
Why isn’t audience included as a part of rhetorical situation? Could you make an argument that it should be? Scholars make the argument that audience isn’t apart of rhetorical situation because in today’s society we have so many ways where it can be reheard. So the author or whoever can’t really use that as a strategy because it completely removes both time and space from the person who delivers the speech or whatever text. Well in Bitzer’s article he does consider audience apart of rhetorical situation and I completely agree. He makes the point that it’s not just an audience that you need but more specifically an audience who will be affected by the text. For example the eulogy is a good instance to look at. The eulogy most likely wouldn’t affect a stranger as it would the mother of the deceased person.
Can you think of a moment in which two people are interacting that wouldn’t use rhetoric (wouldn’t be rhetorical)? This is really hard for me to come up with something. The only thing I can think of would be someone teaching someone a concept. I am thinking of like a math concept. Because although the teacher may have to convince a student to listen or trust in him or her it is the right way to do it, I feel beside all of that it is plainly just showing someone how to do something and not be appealed or trying to make someone feel one way or another. I feel like it’s basically facts.
In this connection, studying rhetoric means studying how people get fooled, and rhetoric is understood as the opposite of truth. P. 327
^^^ I just really like the sentence above. ^^^
