Trackback Assignment

For my trackback assignment, I plan to extend a portion of my dialect assignment to more fully explore the concept of audience.  Specifically, I am interested in the intersection of audience and the creation of social norms and identities.   Since audience is such a fundamental part of the rhetorical process, many scholars have obviously touched on this concept.  Therefore, to narrow my topic, I’d like to look at how rhetorical scholars view the role of audience in the meaning-making process, as opposed to being merely passive recipients of the rhetor’s message.  In this regard, my trackback will be heavily weighted to more modern theorists.

The major scholars that I plan to review will start with Maurice Rene Charland and Walter Ong.  Then, I will move backward into Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, while interspersing Kenneth Burke’s theoretical underpinnings.  Lloyd Bitzer will most likely also come into play at some point in this mid-section.  I will continue to work backward to Aristotle’s early notions of the role of audience. 

Rhetorical Turns

If language is ever shifting, and if we have more recently seen a massive shift in communication practices both in terms of presentation tools and global connections, how should rhetoric shift in terms of its instruction?

Rhetoric, as a discipline, has seen massive turns in its approach (and therefore, its relevance) to educational practices.  To continue to be relevant, rhetorical educational and pedagogical practices will have to keep pace with the changes in communication practices and society at large.  Two areas where rhetoric will be particularly challenged to adapt are in the arenas of technology and multiculturalism.

Our past visions of the future thought that most of our technological advances would be in the area of transportation (Where are the hover cars?  We were promised hover cars!)  If you watch old Sci-Fi movies, few anticipated the level of instant communication capacity that our current society would enjoy.   These communication capabilities present challenges as we prepare students to communicate effectively.  Specifically, social media allows us to rhetorically construct and curate identities for both intended and unintended audiences, for both our personal selves and our professional selves. 

Moreover, in an educational setting, we are instructing students on technology platforms that will likely be outmoded by the time they graduate or shortly thereafter.  Rhetorically, this means that teaching students technological reasoning (and rhetorical) principles is far more relevant and efficacious than teaching to specific technologies.  

Multiculturalism in the context of globalization is another adaptation the discipline of rhetoric must make.  While we acknowledge that much of our knowledge of rhetoric is based in Western thought, we also admit the limitations of this approach.  As a class, we have discussed the perils of universal audience and cross-cultural enthymemes.  At some point, rhetorical theory will need to address ways in which we can effectively communication cross-culturally in a global environment.  (In fairness, being new to the discipline, it is very likely that there are many multicultural theories of which I am presently unaware.)  These theories will need to become embedded into traditional curricular designs and not added as an “aside” or afterthought to standard rhetoric curricula. 

Rhetorical scholars are certainly capable of meeting the challenges that time inevitably presents and it will be fascinating to observe the various forms that these new approaches take.

Abundant Style

What is abundant style, and in what ways is it relevant today in education and/or the workplace? Provide an example.

Abundant style, or copia, is having the ability to express a similar concept in many ways.  By doing so, one can see the precision and nuance in language.  For example, if I say, “I see the flower” I have expressed a simple, straightforward concept.  However, with abundant style, I can more precisely target my meaning and thus, move my audience.  Such an example might look like, “In witnessing the wilting petals on the daisy, graying slightly, I am reminded of the elusive passing nature of life itself.”  In both examples, I have indicated that I have seen a flower but in the second example, I have provided a description of the experience of seeing that flower through the use of style.  This description is more likely to evoke some reaction in audience.

In today’s education, this is relevant because we must understand a broad array of topics so that we can draw from multiple perspectives in order to reach a broad array of audiences.  In this sense, this is the value of a liberal arts education, or at a minimum, the value of general core education requirements for a baccalaureate degree.  This need to have at least a baseline understanding of a broad range of topics is what separates an “educated” member of our society from and uneducated one and why people would choose to go to a university to get a BA/BS rather than a trade school, where such requirements would not be in place.  With this broadened perspective, we can both speak to larger groups and understand the messaging from a larger composite of persuasive speakers.