Response to Keith Grant-Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”

Response to Keith Grant-Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”

Question 1.

Have you ever thought of writers as negotiating with their audiences? As a writer, what is the difference between imagining yourself talking to and negotiating with your audience? What would you do differently if you were doing the latter?

Response 1.

I have never before thought of writers as negotiating with their audiences but I do believe that it is a good idea that should always be considered. Simply talking to an audience can be boring and not as engaging as you may wish. If you think of your rhetoric as a conversation it will be much more interesting and you can compound your ideas to create a much more in depth discourse that may be much more epistemic. This can happen because the interlocutor will be constantly reconsidering their thoughts as this “conversation goes on.

Question 4.

What are constraints? To help you work this out, consider what Grant-Davie’s constraints might have been in drafting this piece. Bitzer, you learned in this piece, argues that we should think of constraints as aids rather than restrictions. How can that be?

Response 4.

Grant-Davies had the constraints that he needed to accomplish as much as possible while still being able to communicate with his interlocutors in an effective manner they could comprehend. This can be spun to be positive in the fact that he could take the confusion and apply it to become teachings.

Question 7.

Grant-Davie suggests that we have to ask three questions to understand the exigence of a rhetorical situation: what a discourse is about, why it’s needed, and what it’s trying to accomplish. What’s the difference between the second question and the third question?

Response 7.

Why rhetoric is needed and what it tries to accomplish is very different. But also the same… Why a specific piece is needed versus what it is trying to accomplish can be redefined as cause vs. effect. The cause of a piece drives a rhetor to examine why they need to do anything at all and the driving forces behind it. On the contrary, the effect of a piece is what has been achieved or accomplished. So how are they the same? They parallel each other with thoughts and both contribute to the greater goal to create a piece that solves both the exigence and stases of the piece to help the interlocutor  absorb an epistemic piece.