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Hello and good day I was gonna say morning because it's morning for me right now, but I don't know what time of day it is for you. So just day, you know. Anyway, welcome back to right like you mean it where we've been discussing rhetorical analysis. So how to rhetorically analyze a written text more specifically. Now in a previous episode, it was episode seven, I talked a little bit about the Chi rhotic moments with the idea of kairos, the ancient Greek rhetorical term. And I think I may have mentioned or just mentally made a note to do this, but in this episode, I'm going to go into more detail about Kairos and talk about that. So Kairos, K Airo. S Kairos, refers to a moment in time that is especially opportune, or advantageous, that you can seize that has. that's ripe for the picking, right for the temporal picking. It's maybe never thought about it like that. There you go. Anyway, Kairos, opportune, advantageous moment in time, it can be any length from a fleeting present instant, to an entire season or a year. It just depends on the scale, really, the surrounding conditions, and we're talking cultural, political, economic, technological, etc. All impact what is possible or not possible at any given Kairos as a rhetorical term Kairos names both the occasion for discourse and the opportunities and constraints that arise during the discourse itself. If you're already getting some rhetorical situation, flavors, when it's described like that, just in a few minutes, we'll talk about that direct relationship. So this notion means that the rudder must be sensitive to the ever changing Kairos to the ever changing ness of it, in order to be successful, or most effective. Because it's a fluid ever changing thing. It's not a given set once and for all, but rather something that the writer must constantly read and respond to Cairo status, the writer needs to develop their ability to detect and respond to it or how they go about responding to it their approach. So again, always shifting always in motion. Now let's look at an example. More of a conceptual example, not quite totally concrete yet, but we're getting closer to that. So, for example, suppose the writer wants to argue that some country should intervene militarily and some civil war taking place within another country. That's the situation. They begin by discussing the situation in the war torn country and the reasons for outside intervention. And so they lay out their argument, making the best case for intervention. However, at this point in the discourse or the unfolding of the situation, many members of the audience are likely to be skeptical for all kinds of reasons, if not openly hostile to the idea of intervention, the better than is not in a good position to make the argument at this time, since the audience is not yet ready to listen to it. Okay, sure, the writer may try to win them over and make all kinds of attempts to to do that to effectively transform their non receptive audience into a receptive and rhetorically responsive audience. rhetorically responsive in a positive sense that is,
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but more than likely, the writer will need to wait until the right time to make the argument, which means until the Kairos has shifted in favor of intervention. An argument made toward that end is less likely to be effective, and it may even be dangerous to make it it may work against the aims of the argument. Now here at this moment, let me take the time to remind you that Kairos is an idea. It's not like a hard and fast rule of nature. No, nothing like that no differential equation or formula. This is a theoretical aspect of the field of rhetoric. But this rhetorical concept is is useful. You know, it's not like, this is the one and only theory and there can be no others can't be No, I said it and I stand by it. Oh, yeah, grammar baby. As I was saying, it's useful. It's not the only tool in the toolbox. It's one of many. You know what I'm saying? It's not a secret that a successful writer knows exactly when to speak, or at least has an intuitive sense of it of the right time to speak the right moment and to the right person or audience. So it's very useful and quite common, actually, according to some classical authorities. virtually the whole art of rhetoric boils down to the ability to say what is timely and appropriate to Kairos at any moment, and the ability to create or modify Kairos. And to set up the moment when a particular statement can be fitting and persuasive. This process, you can think of it a little like telling a joke from setup to punchline, if you properly set it up, and you deliver it at the right time, you know, other things considered too, of course. But if it's delivered at the right moment, it's funny. You know, this is basically the saying, comedy is all about. Yes, that's right timing, timing. Now, timing isn't everything. It's kind of like the key or maybe there's something of the skeleton key about it. But a good writer can say what is appropriate to season and Kairos having the ability to perceive the propitious moment and the ability to create opportunity. Now, in view of this conception of rhetoric, Kairos signifies the fitting time or time when speech can be persuasive without focusing on favorable arguments or attractive language, so much as recognizing the optimal window for a particular entity of rhetorical discourse to be given. To be persuasive, the writer has to say something appropriate to the moment so that nothing can occur to destroy the persuasiveness of their effort. And moreover, the writer must observe the proper moment, neither too early or too late. This concept of the proper moment has implications for the ends or purposes of rhetoric. Now, at this point in the conversation, I want to turn it to a different direction. I'm not done talking about Kairos yet, we'll come back to that and talk a lot more about it actually. But for now, let's transition to thinking about Kairos and aspects of the rhetorical situation. Alright, so the modern notion of rhetorical situation explores much of what the ancient notion of kairos leaves unsaid. And we'll start with the most basic of rhetorical situations, which has been called the oral oral situation, O ra l, hyphen, a u r a l. Oral oral situation. That's that's tough to say. So yeah, we'll start there the most basic of rhetorical situations, the oral RL situation, and then consider the more complex situation of textual alized discourse. So what the heck is this RRR situation, the
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oral RL situation, what is it? In the rhetoric of Aristotle, Aristotle discusses the three means of persuasion and he talks about ethos, which is character, logos, reason and pathos, which is emotion these are also kinds of appeals right means of persuasion, ethos, logos, pathos. And of these three logos is often considered the most important for it's through logos that the rhetoric employs evidence and rational arguments and make their case. The problem for the redder, however, is the audience's frame of mind. Specifically, that the audience may not be in the right frame of mind to listen to logos, because they may be hostile, skeptical or uninterested in what the writer has to say. And in such cases, the writer must rely on the other two means of persuasion, ethos and pathos to get their point across. It's kind of like the writers down a man for whatever reason, Logos is in the penalty box, and we're waiting, we're Rerouting the power to all the components we have, which is not all of them. And it may not be enough, Emilio estivesse. Despite how good of a coach he is, he needs all the ducks right? They're not capital M mighty without ethos, pathos and logos. Carbon those rhetorical brocades in the eyes to a decisive win and roll credits baby Mighty dogs in case you haven't seen it, that's what I'm talking about a moment from my childhood. Here with rhetorical situation. I kind of surprised that how much sense I think I just made that just came out of nowhere. But there you go. I hope that helps clarify a few things give you this interesting example. Anyway, let's rewind a couple of 10 second groupings. And remember where we started, have the three means of persuasion, typically, logos, logos, no, no logos is considered the most important because it's through logos that the writer employs evidence and rational arguments make their case. And again, the problem is that the audience may not be in the right frame of mind to listen to logos, Logos might be in the penalty box, which means that the writer has to rely on the other two means of persuasion to get their point across to sink that puck in the net. Okay, so that's established. Now one way to think about the oral oral situation is in terms of the three dimensions of communication. These are sender, message and receiver. Like a pathway, the sender is the person who was making the argument, the message is the argument itself, and the receiver is the person or audience who is receiving the argument. The key to successful communication is to ensure that the message is properly aligned with the receiver proper alignment, the sender must take into account the receivers worldview, beliefs, biases, and must craft the message in a way that is relevant and persuasive to them to that particular audience. And if the message is not properly aligned with the receiver, it will not be effective, it will be ineffective to a degree lower than is required to release enough energy for change to occur. No matter how well crafted it may be. So in this oral RL situation, we have someone orally saying something to someone who orally with their ears, listens, right?
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The speaker produces a speech that's the speaker's words for an audience, which is the person or persons to whom the speaker's words are addressed, or the address sees, let's call them. The speech is produced by the speaker and interpreted by the audience in response to some occasion. Okay, and both the speaker's speech and the audience's interpretation depend on these things called presuppositions. presuppositions, these are ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge, etc ideas that make the speech believable. Needless to say these presuppositions are very important. And in the speech, they may be overtly stated, as when the Declaration of Independence says We hold these truths to be self evident, etc, etc. These self evident truths they're not argued for or defended, but simply assumed as the starting points or Givens on which the rest of the declarations arguments depend. But here's the thing they're not always overtly stated or even stated at all. Sometimes they go without saying presuppositions may not even require conscious thought, an audience or a speaker may hold a deep presupposition without consciously thinking about it. They may feel what goes without saying. So those are the basics. Now, let's elaborate. So first, I'll talk about occasion, then I'll talk about exigence. Then think about exigence as an issue and some implications there and discussed the three basic kinds of discourse. And those in classical rhetoric are judicial, deliberative, and apodictic. And then we'll discuss some things about genre, historical and cultural context, to say some more about presuppositions and then bring it back home to a larger view more comprehensive anyway, of rhetorical situation. And so in the next episode, that's exactly where we're going to pick up at the start of that train. So thank you, thank you for listening. I can't wait to see you there in the next episode. Until then, and always keep on keepin on. But you know, like in a less grind, fullness, more mindfulness kind of sense. Hi, yeah, let's grind phonus more mindfulness. I like it. I like it. Alright, y'all, I'm Mr. Fraley, your host for right like you mean it. And I really got to work on this whole signing off thing. All right. I'll see you later.
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