Rhetorical Analysis

Assignment Descriiption
This 2 page statement should clearly answer the research questions below regarding rhetorical communication (see below). The assignment is due by 11:59
pm on the due date as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file, turned into Canvas. The following bullets provide the prompt for the essay. Students may choose to treat
their answers to each bulleted prompt as separate paragraphs in the final essay.
Please note that this assignment is asking you to answer all of the questions below. Graders for this assignment will be looking for an answer to each of the
questions. You do not have to format the answers as separate paragraphs, although I recommend that organizational strategy to feature your answers to the
questions.
Introduction: After your Attention-Getting Device (AGD), provide the thesis and purpose of your rhetorical analysis. What new observations does your analysis
reveal? What is the benefit, profit, or take-away of having completed this analysis? Then, provide a preview statement that outlines how the rest of the essay
will proceed.
What is rhetoric? Cite a key definition drawn from the course and/or academic sources, and explain what this definition means.
Explain a core rhetorical concept. Connect this definition to a concept (or concepts) drawn from the course. Why and how do they offer a helpful lens through
which to understand contemporary rhetoric?
Show how the concept illuminates a case. Provide an example of current or contemporary rhetoric that illustrates this rhetorical concept ‘in action’. Tell us
enough about the case to understand the relevance of the rhetorical concept, and then show how the concept illuminates our understanding of this example.
Conclusion: Gesture beyond the case at hand to explain why your rhetorical analysis might be useful more generally or in application to a wider set of topics.
What else about public communication might an analysis like this one reveal?
It is important that you make use of clear organization and topic sentences in your writing. Please indicate which question you are answering in the header of
your document (in addition to identifying information like student name, class, date), offer a prospective answer as a thesis statement, and briefly discuss
researched support for the thesis.For additional writing and organizational advice for this assignment, please consult the following document, which was
covered in class: Additional Guidance for Critical Writing.docx.
Citations
Short papers should contain (1) in text citations (guidelines for in-text citations can be found here: Citations for Critical Writing.docx) and (2) a works cited
section at the end of the document containing 3-5 properly formatted citations (more information about MLA, APA, and Chicago can be found at the
corresponding links). Points will be deducted from the assignment if a works cited page is included without incorporating in-text citations.
Some Definitions of Rhetoric
In addition to the unit-specific definitions below, I have also uploaded a separate document that contains some more definitions of rhetoric to Canvas. For
reference, you might consider the following pairings, which have been recurrent throughout the class. Feel free to return to the lecture outline document
and/or agenda document, which is also where these definitions are drawn from.
Classical (Greek) Rhetoric
Plato: “Rhetoric moves the soul by means of speech”
Aristotle: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic (or philosophy) / the available means of persuasion in any given situation.”
Sign and Symbol
As-persuasion/public address: “something that happens in or as a speech, and it relies upon the speaker’s conscious choices, their historical circumstances,
and the timeliness of the moment at which speeches delivered.”
Burke: Rhetoric as identification is “the way that speech unifies and divides a collective public audience.”
Burke: Rhetoric as symbolic action “occurs around symbols and relies upon the idea of con substantiality or the creation of a sameness or likeness, between
different members of a group based upon a shared and symbolic point of reference, rather than just persuading with the right words.”
Ideology and Myth
Rhetoric describes the way that any given sign can acquire an additional meaning or signification, contributing to a shared system of belief that supports an
ideology.
Agency
Rhetoric is “the capacity to act” which may reside in the audience, the speaker, and/or the text.
Persona
Rhetoric is public address or speech addressed with an audience in mind or that is implied by the act of address.
Speech Act
Rhetoric is a performative utterance that has specific consequences either at the moment of the utterance or at some distance from it.
Narrative
Rhetoric is the arrangement of forms in language, image, and speech to create recognizable genres. Forms provide a recognizable logical order, are
repeatable (such as a sequence or a figure of speech), and are ambivalent to the ethical or political goals that they serve.
Argument
Rhetoric, when organized as an argument, is both a thing (such as a logical form) and a relationship (for example, as between an affirmative and a negative
position, or between a defendant and a plaintiff).
Visual Rhetoric
Rhetoric consists of the persuasive and presentational symbolism of the circulating image that acts as a source of shared culture and identification for a
given public.
The Rhetorical Situation
Rhetoric is a “fitting response” to an exigency that is addressed to an audience (or audiences) while navigating specific constraints.
A “complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse,
introduced in the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence
In addition to the unit-specific definitions below, I have also uploaded a separate document that contains some more definitions of rhetoric to Canvas. For
reference, you might consider the following pairings, which have been recurrent throughout the class. Feel free to return to the lecture outline document
and/or agenda document, which is also where these definitions are drawn from.
Classical (Greek) Rhetoric
Plato: “Rhetoric moves the soul by means of speech”
Aristotle: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic (or philosophy) / the available means of persuasion in any given situation.”
Sign and Symbol
As-persuasion/public address: “something that happens in or as a speech, and it relies upon the speaker’s conscious choices, their historical circumstances,
and the timeliness of the moment at which speeches delivered.”
Burke: Rhetoric as identification is “the way that speech unifies and divides a collective public audience.”
Burke: Rhetoric as symbolic action “occurs around symbols and relies upon the idea of con substantiality or the creation of a sameness or likeness, between
different members of a group based upon a shared and symbolic point of reference, rather than just persuading with the right words.”
Ideology and Myth
Rhetoric describes the way that any given sign can acquire an additional meaning or signification, contributing to a shared system of belief that supports an
ideology.
Agency
Rhetoric is “the capacity to act” which may reside in the audience, the speaker, and/or the text.
Persona
Rhetoric is public address or speech addressed with an audience in mind or that is implied by the act of address.
Speech Act
Rhetoric is a performative utterance that has specific consequences either at the moment of the utterance or at some distance from it.
Narrative
Rhetoric is the arrangement of forms in language, image, and speech to create recognizable genres. Forms provide a recognizable logical order, are
repeatable (such as a sequence or a figure of speech), and are ambivalent to the ethical or political goals that they serve.
Argument
Rhetoric, when organized as an argument, is both a thing (such as a logical form) and a relationship (for example, as between an affirmative and a negative
position, or between a defendant and a plaintiff).
Visual Rhetoric
Rhetoric consists of the persuasive and presentational symbolism of the circulating image that acts as a source of shared culture and identification for a
given public.
The Rhetorical Situation
Rhetoric is a “fitting response” to an exigency that is addressed to an audience (or audiences) while navigating specific constraints.
A “complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse,
introduced in the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence
The Settler Situation
Rhetoric consists of the colonizer’s patterns of disavowal that project that threat of colonization onto a foreign other who allegedly threatens the colonizer
with their colonization, and which provides the colonizer with a justification to perpetuate colonial governance.
Secrecy Rhetoric
Rhetoric consists of the ways that “we know that we do not know” or the cues, patterns, and behaviors that alert a person or public, after the fact, to the
existence of some secret.
Digital Rhetoric
The language we use and the practices that have become invisible/normal concerning technology, in which the words and techniques we use to monitor and
model human behavior have destructive public consequences.