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Hey, everybody, welcome back where we've been talking about rhetorical analysis, and we'll continue that here. Were thinking rhetorically about a text is our primary concern for this episode. So yeah, we're gonna think about how we're going to talk about how to think rhetorically about a text. Book. Okay. So what does it mean, to think rhetorically about texts? What does that mean? Well, it's become an effective reader of arguments. And to construct effective arguments yourself, you need to think of all arguments as voices and ongoing conversations about issues. This is something you probably already know. Or if you don't know, in a way that you could articulate it as such, you at least know it intuitively. So we need to think about these arguments rhetorically in order to understand them, and to understand the kinds of investments that such invested stakeholders are working with when they construct their arguments in order to move their audiences to see the issues their way. So let's look closely or more closely at what we mean by thinking rhetorically. So the broadest level, rhetoric is the study of how human how human beings use language and other symbols to influence the attitudes, beliefs and actions of others, says the broad definition. And it's highly interpretable, highly applicable, highly conceptual. But in a narrower sense, rhetoric is the art of making messages. Persuasive, persuasive, perhaps the most famous definition comes from Aristotle, who defined rhetoric as, quote, the ability to see, in any particular case, all the available means of persuasion, and quote. So for a written text, when we're thinking rhetorically about it, that means determining what available means of persuasion a writer is using in a particular argument. You can do this by getting inside an argument, just get inside of it and listen carefully to what the writer is, while arguing first of all, and determine how this argument has been constructed to reach its audience. Now, we really haven't moved anywhere into this yet, we're still kind of at the entrance, if you will. So how do arguments reach audiences through the way they're constructed? Mostly. So you should imagine how these stakeholders who were investing in arguments are real persons, who were motivated to right by some occasion, to achieve some real purpose, to have some kind of actionable influence upon some very real audience. And indeed, their reasons for making their arguments should be as important to you as their strategies for presenting them to their imagined audiences, or sometimes very real audiences. It depends. Thinking rhetorically is a skill. And you should develop it early in your writing career, or just in your career as a human being, if you will, not just on the job, but in your English classes as well. Or maybe say that the other way around, not just in your English classes, but on the job as well. I mean, seriously, in every department of your college or university, and in every industry in which you will, or maybe even could work, people will present arguments to rationalize their behavior and persuade others, which includes you sometimes to approve their decisions and actions. No matter what you do in life, you will have to evaluate these arguments, determine whether they are persuasive and respond to them. So the sooner you are to do this, honestly, the better. It's really important to realize that all arguments are rhetorical to the extent that they have been crafted to persuade an audience. And that's sort of the main notion to carry forwards into your thinking about rhetorical analysis and also doing it. So let's continue this by asking the implicit question that we've already started answering, which is, why should you think rhetorically about arguments? Why should you? Well, in a complex and unpredictable world, such as ours is, as I'm sure you well know, just by being in it even a little bit. Texts remain the principal tools for gaining knowledge, forming and reforming opinions resolving conflict, demonstrating standards of quality and value.
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These are just a few things right? Despite the problem With the news, it is still important to at least understand what public issues are being disputed in the very public world of texts. And that includes books, newspapers, magazines, film, television, transcripts of congressional debates, I mean, etc, etc. The point is that that is part of literacy. It's necessary information to provide a more complete picture of the problem. Maybe it's the problem of how the problem is being presented, but maybe it's just the problem of whatever the issue actually is, you know? Sort of, okay, yeah, try and figure that one out. Sounds more like a riddle than anything. But I think you get my point. Really, the point is very simple. And it's to become a better reader, a perceiver, of the complex and unpredictable world of particle texts always bent on persuading us because it's in their construction to do so. So yeah. All right. So let's go back to what reading is. But let's think about it in some different terms here. So we'll call it reading is a process of building a model of the world in your head. To build this model, you construct sense relations that join the texts, you read some mental entities you already know about the world. And to make successful sense relationships, you need to use techniques that recognize different rhetorical strategies. There are different ways of reading and sometimes one way is better than another way or at least more appropriate or less something are better than whatever. It's good to have. A toolbox full of tools. Wait, what? It's better to have more tools, then just one, you can't build a rocket ship with a screwdriver? Well, unless your doctor who then you can but but I guess that's why doctor who was so awesome. Anyway, where are we still thinking about rhetorical arguments talking about reading, right? So a process of building a model of the world in your head. In texts we read for different purposes, we model our models of the worlds on different assumptions. Or we find that the models of the world presented to us are based on different assumptions. For each of these different assumptions we developed through association techniques appropriate to that model. And so as we read, we also need to ask to whom was the text addressed? And why has it been written? Remember that a communication is an attempt to convey a message in a symbolic form to a particular audience. So we need to decode this message. And one way we can do that is first to reconstruct a text rhetorical context. So every text has a context, every bull's eye has the rest of the board surrounding it, if you will, maybe think about it like that, though, it's not always as symmetrical. So we can read, reconstruct the source text rhetorical context by analyzing the text, author, purpose, motivating occasion, audience genre, and angle a vision. When we want to enter an argument of conversation, we need to think rhetorically about each stakeholders argument. So a first step in doing so reconstruct the text rhetorical context by asking questions about the author, and then about the author's purpose, motivating occasion, why they're writing it basically, the audience to whom they're writing or who might receive it. The genre could be the form that the text takes, or even the means of its distribution, or the medium. As as we're thinking about the written word versus the image versus the, the, the film or the song or the lyric or whatever.
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So again, as we've discussed in previous episodes, some of the first questions you can ask or maybe even the first three questions that you should ask, Are these who is the author? What motivates the author to write? And what is the author's purpose? So who was the motivation? And what's the purpose? Now imagine answering these questions about something you were writing. If you see yourself simply as a student acting out school roles. You might answer the questions this way. I'm a first year college student my motivated occasion is an assignment for my professor, my purpose is to get a good grade. But to see yourself rhetorically, it's better to put yourself in a plausible real world situation. So for example, I am a first year student concerned about global warming. So here we have a topic right? My motivating occasion is my anger at our school's Environmental Action Task Force for not endorsing nuclear power. My purpose is to persuade this group that using nuclear power is the best way to reduce our nation's carbon footprint. In real life, writers are motivated to write because some occasion prompts them to do so. In most cases, the writers purpose is to bring about some desirable change in the targeted audiences actions, beliefs or views. It's more than just getting a good grade. If you are in a face to face, argumentative conversation, say on a committee, you will know that most of the stakeholders and the roles they play are pretty recognizable, are familiar and can't assert themselves in various ways, directions, capacities, and so on. But if you're uncovering the conversation yourself through research, you may have difficulty imagining the author of say a blog post or a magazine article as a real person writing for a real purpose sparked by a real occasion. It's different when the committee is more abstract or is actual society itself. So maybe it can help to think about some of the typical stakeholders and argumentative discussion of civic issues can categorize groups of real world people who are apt to write arguments about civic issues. So first, we might have lobbyists and advocacy groups. Then we have legislators, political candidates, and government officials, business professionals and labor union leaders, lawyers and judges, journalists, syndicated columnist and media commentators, professional freelance or staff, writers, members of a think tank, scholars and academics, documentary filmmakers, and then citizens and students. Not that there's any kind of hierarchy in that in that list. But just to bring it back to you at the end, basically, assuming that you're a student, which is also to say that you're a citizen. So what do we do with this? Well, can give us ideas or senses of audiences make the committee feel more real in situations where we're needing to read an existing argument, or make one of our own? In any case, what we can do to help us is ask questions that promote rhetorical thinking. So how do we do that? First, we should, obviously but at an operational level, to see arguments rhetorically means posing certain kinds of questions that uncover the rhetorical context and position of each stakeholder in the conversation. When you hear or read someone else's argument. Let's call this argument as source written by source author, right? You need to ask rhetorically focused questions about the source author's argument. If you seek answers to the list of questions that we'll talk about, in a few minutes, you will be thinking rhetorically about arguments. Although a rhetorical analysis will not include answers to all these questions, because sometimes you just can't cover everything. Using some of the questions and your thinking stages can give you a thorough understanding of the argument, while helping you generate insights for your own rhetorical analysis essay.
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Alright, so as promised, let's go ahead and consider some of these questions for rhetorical analysis, that we should make a good habit in practice of asking when we're performing one. So first, we'll talk about what to focus on. And then from there the questions to ask about that focus, and then consider how to apply them in certain situations. So the first thing I want to consider is a new concept which I realize I haven't talked about yet, which is the Chi rhotic moment and that comes from the Greek, the Greek word Kairos. So the erotic moment and writers motivating occasion is a good place to start your focus. So first of all, of course, we need to know what this chi rhotic moment is, is spelled k a IROT. I see from the original Greek Kairos, meaning opportune moment, spelled K AI R O S. O is not boring you too much some spelling out Greek words in this podcast. But anyway i chi Radek moment from the Greek Kairos means opportune moment. And indeed a chi rhotic moment is an opportune moment in which a writer or speaker feels called to express a particular thought or message, an opportune moment, there's a timeliness to it, in which a writer or speaker or writer of some sort feels called to express through whatever medium or means a particular thought or message. The motivating occasion for writers work that's a little bit different, because it's the event or experience that first prompts them to start working on a particular project. Now, the two concepts are often used interchangeably because they are nearly synonymous. But the concept of kairos is sometimes deemed more fundamental than the concept of an occasion. Because the metaphorical root of the word Kairos, or a gate through which goods are exchanged, first points to an integration of the universal and the concrete. So Kairos establishes an urgency for action, whereas a motivating occasion might not. And a Kairos may also be triggered by a number of different simultaneous intentions and concerns in the writers life. So what exactly does that mean with respect to Kairos, and the information concerning the Kairos ik moment presented here? Well, it introduces the idea that a Kairos may be triggered by a variety of factors. And not just a single event. This means that a chi erotic moment can be influenced by a number of different things going on in the writers life at the same time. And so this adds complexity to the concept of kairos and shows that it is not a simple, straightforward idea, but rather one that is nuanced and multifaceted. So that's sort of a lot to chew on. And I encourage you to research Kairos on your own time, apart from what we talked about here, but for the time being, let's just go ahead and run with what we have. And that's exactly where we'll pick up at the beginning of the next episode, thinking rhetorically where we consider conceptions of audience of of course, as it relates to rhetorical analysis, but that episode is really like the second half of this one or the logical continuation of it rather. And I really hope to see you there so you know, until then, keep on keepin Harry Potter, people sign off. And that's how the cookie crumbles.