Rhetorical Criticism

Question 1

What’s Burke’s definition of rhetoric?

Answer 1

The use or words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce action in other human agents.

Question 2

What does Burke use the term consubstantial to describe?

Answer 2

Individuals form identities based on various things (substances). When people ally themselves with common substances, they share substance. It’s synonymous with identification.

Question 3

Identification cannot be understood apart from what?

Answer 3

Division

Question 4

According to Burke, what do people seek to eliminate through communication?

Answer 4

Division

Question 5

What is one way a rhetor can create identification in an audience?

Answer 5

By naming or defining a situation.

Question 6

What are terministic screens?

Answer 6

The words we use direct our attention to some aspects of reality and not others.

Question 7

How can critics track down the kinds of observation implicit in the terminology a rhetor has chosen?

Answer 7

First, a critic should determine if the terminology was deliberate or spontaneous. After this, a critic can find cues to rhetor’s worldviews and meaning, noting what they choose to talk about and the words they use to describe it, as well as looking at what follows what.

Question 8

How do we discover the meaning of key symbols in cluster criticism?

Answer 8

It provides insights into the meanings of key terms, through a survey of the hills and valleys, and thus the worldview of the rhetor.

Question 9

How do you determine your key terms?

Answer 9

You look for those that have the greatest frequency or intensity.

Question 10

Generic criticism is based on what assumption?

Answer 10

Certain types of situations provoke similar needs and expectations in an audience, so each situation has a specific type of rhetoric.

Question 11

What does generic criticism seek to discover?

Answer 11

Generic criticism seeks to discover what rhetorical patterns are in common in similar or reoccurring situations, with the purpose of understanding rhetorical expectations.

Question 12

What is a rhetorical genre?

Answer 12

A constellation of interdependent situational requirements, substantive and stylistic characteristics, and organizing principles that create a unique kind of artifact.

Question 13

What are three ways to analyze an artifact in generic criticism?

Answer 13

• Description
• Participation
• Application

Question 14

What are you looking for in generic description?

Answer 14

You are attempting to see if several artifacts constitute a genre. (Inductive)

Question 15

What are the steps of generic description?

Answer 15

1. Observing similarities in rhetorical responses to particular situations
2. Collecting artifacts that occur in similar situations
3. Analyzing the artifacts to discover if they share characteristics
4. Formulating the organizing principle

Question 16

What are you trying to deterimine in generic participation?

Answer 16

If an individual artifact is part of an established genre. (Deductive)

Question 17

What are you trying to determine in generic application?

Answer 17

You are trying to assess the an artifact by applying the generic model to it. (Deductive)

Question 18

Why do we say a genre is not formulaic?

Answer 18

The rules of a genre do not specify precisely how the rhetorical act should be performed. The rhetor could always use another strategy.

Question 19

If the rhetor could always use another strategy, what does a genre do?

Answer 19

It establishes options

Question 20

Why aren’t all common elements in a set of artifacts included in the genre?

Answer 20

First, because the substantive and stylistics strategies must be required by or clearly rooted in the situation. Otherwise, the common element could just be coincidental. Second, if the absence of a characteristic doesn’t change the dynamic of the genre, then it’s not part of the interdependent fusion.

Question 21

Why is genre more than a classification by characteristics?

Answer 21

Characteristics should contribute insight about a type of rhetoric. If it just leads to a neat classification, then it doesn’t clarify, and isn’t interesting.

Question 22

What are the steps for generic participation?

Answer 22

1. Describing the perceived situational requirements, substantive and stylistic strategies, and organizing principle of a genre
2. Describing the perceived situations requirements, substantive and stylistic strategies, and organizing principle of an artifact
3. Comparing the characteristics of the artifact with those of the genre to discover if the artifact belongs in that genre.

Question 23

What are the steps for generic application?

Answer 23

1. Describing the perceived situational requirements, substantive and stylistic strategies, and organizing principle of a genre
2. Describing the perceived situation requirements, substantive and stylistic strategies, and organizing principle of an artifact
3. Comparing the characteristics of the artifact with those of the genre to discover if the artifact belongs in that genre.
4. Evaluating the artifact according to its success in fulfilling the required characteristics of the genre.

Question 24

What are situational requirements?

Answer 24

The perception of conditions in a situation that call forth particular kinds of responses.

Question 25

What are substantive and stylistic charcteristics?

Answer 25

Features of the rhetoric chosen by the rhetor to respond to the perceived requirements of particular situations.

Question 26

What is the organizing principle?

Answer 26

A label for the internal dynamic of the constellation that is formed by substantive, stylistic, and situational features of the genre.