Book Review: Starring the Text by Alan G. Gross

In Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies, Alan G. Gross examines the role of science texts as persuasive communication by applying the traditions of rhetorical analysis to the writings of science greats such as Copernicus, Darwin, and Newton. Scientific advancement is expressed through written communication including texts, tables, and visual representations of explanation and argument. Gross asserts that “the texts of science are not just texts; they are what the Bible once was: revealed truth about the causal structure of the universe” (p. ix).

To accomplish his analysis of scientific communication, Gross conducts a series of case studies centered on specific scientific texts to demonstrate the use of rhetorical conventions, by the authors, to argue for their findings and persuade their peers to accept their positions. In doing so, Gross implements rigorous rhetorical analysis to illuminate how the writers of scientific texts discovered, presented, and contested the results of their search for understanding. In this book, Gross presents his findings in four major sections.

In Part One, Gross defends the necessity for a rhetorical analysis of science writing. He explores the history of rhetoric of science and exposes how rhetoric is used to promote scientific writing and the techniques of persuasion used to sway audiences to accept findings and theories. Specifically, Gross provides an excellent brief history of rhetoric of science in Chapter 1 that demonstrates a personal knowledge of how this valuable academic discipline developed a critical voice within scientific writing.

Gross then turns his attention to explore the limits of rhetorical analysis of science. In Part Two, he explores the rhetorical construct of taxonomy as persuasion to accept evolutionary theory and how both Newton and Descartes used rhetoric to each promote their own theories of optics. Although Gross does not assert that a full rhetorical description of scientific texts is possible, he does use these case studies to suggest that “rhetoric is a discipline; moreover, its disciplinary status entitles us to speak of all written and visual records of the scientific from a rhetorical perspective” (p. 78).

In Part Three, Gross explores the range of rhetorical analysis of science by examining how evolution evolved in Darwin’s notebooks, articulating the importance of peer-review in certifying consensus within a scientific community, and tracing heliocentricity as the origin of rational conversation which Gross asserts was an essential ingredient to the spread of Copernicanism in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In all, Gross conducts five case studies in this section not to demonstrate that science is rhetoric but that no one discipline “can be relied on to provide a fully adequate explanation of what science is and how it works” (p. 141).

Finally, Gross attempts to place rhetoric within scientific inquiry by exploring the compatibility of rhetoric and sociology as well as psychology and the history of science. Of particular value in Part Four is Chapter 11 where Gross analyzes the Newton-Leibniz debate to demonstrate the role of priority in the social invention of scientific history. Because scientific advancements may happen nearly simultaneously, “the actual effect of an emphasis on priority may undermine its intended effect, the encouragement of scientific advance. Every scientific paper instantiates the tension created by these opposing tendencies” (p. 178).

Starring The Text represents a major re-tooling of Gross’ earlier book, The Rhetoric of Science and constitutes a shift from arguments anchored in the rhetorical to the philosophical. This book offers a major contribution to the field of rhetoric of science and is a must read for both students and scholars of this field as well as technical communicators who specialize within this context. In addition, this book offers and excellent history of rhetorical scientific criticism and should be considered as a text for the classroom.

-Safari Bob

Gross, A. G. (2006). Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 216 pp.

2011 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference

On 8 October 2011, I was fortunate enough to present a paper at the 2011 Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association in Scottsdale Arizona. I had never been to Scottsdale but I found it beautiful. The weather was perfect and I had a great time wondering around the Old Town district. Unfortunately, I did not get to visit The Poisoned Pen; an independent bookstore that specializes in crime fiction, carrying British and Canadian as well as American titles. I love mysteries and I would have spent way too much time and money there. Still, I would that I could have visited; next time!

At least the conference was great! Here is my proposal:

Mining YouTube to Research “Real-World” Intercultural Communication Contexts for the Service-Level Technical Writing Classroom

Abstract

Analyzing and articulating different audiences is a significant challenge for students of technical communication. Teaching intercultural writing to beginning technical communication students can often seem manufactured and artificial. By exploring cultural expectations in “real-world” contexts, instructors of technical communication can provide these future practitioners of technical writing the tools necessary to identify and articulate specific targeted audiences within a global environment.

This paper/presentation examines how to best use YouTube, a popular video sharing website on which both companies and consumers can upload and view videos, to study and identify differing intercultural “real-world” communication contexts. To do so, I will first explore Edward Hall’s heuristic of High- and Low-context cultures and how culture is manifested in his “situation frame”, the smallest identifiable unit of culture. Next, I will demonstrate where to find and how to use videos posted on YouTube to provide insight to technical writing students into the cultural norms and expectations of a given, targeted, cross-cultural audience. Finally, I will explore how to synthesize the cultural research conducted by students on YouTube with Hall’s heuristic of High- and Low-context into explicit writing strategies to a targeted, “real-world” audience.

Essentially, I introduce Edward T. Hall's heuristic of High/Low Context and demonstrate how students can collect data from cultures by analyzing primary sources: TV commercials. Using Hall's model, students can conduct analysis on these commercials and construct rhetorical strategies--based on Hall's model--to reach their targeted audience. For instance, this commercial is targeted to Americans:

Here you can see how the authors demonstrate the features, explain the rationale behind everything, and privilege the technology--all signs of a Low Context culture. Now look at this commercial for French consumers:

This commercial is different in that it focuses on human relations, unspoken rules of behavior, and the technology is not privileged--all signs of a High Context culture. Although this is a simplistic example, students can learn more by searching more commercials or focusing on one product and researching how this product is marketed to different cultures.

Here are my slides:

If you are so inclined, or if you suffer from insomnia, you can read more about my conference presentations at Academia.edu.

-Safari Bob

2010 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference

On 14 October 2010, I was fortunate to present a paper at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA) conference in Albuquerque, NM. Now I love Albuquerque and I have attended some conference there every year since 2006 (5 total) so I was really hoping to get to participate. Once I got there, however, I could little believe how friendly and open the other conference attendees were both at my presentation and out by the coffee/tea bar. In addition, I listened to some fine papers in both Technical communication and literature. I hope that I will be able to attend next year in Scottsdale, AZ and, if you study literature, writing, or technical communication, you should too. Here is a snapshot of my presentation:

Multi-dimensional Audience Analysis: Synthesizing Technical Expertise and Cultural Dimensions as Audience Heuristic

Abstract
Analyzing and articulating different audiences is a significant challenge for students of technical communication. Instructors of technical communication can provide these future practitioners with the tools to accurately identify and profile specific audiences by introducing heuristics that synthesize dimensions of technical expertise and culture. By practicing how to use this heuristic in ‘real-world’ contexts, instructors can provide students the tools necessary to identify and articulate specific targeted audiences within a global environment.

In this presentation, I first briefly examine two common audience analysis heuristics: technical expertise and dimensions of culture. Both approaches can provide valuable guidelines for practitioners of technical communication to assemble effective audience analyses for their writing projects.

Next, I articulate how technical communicators can benefit from incorporating these heuristics into the classroom. Specifically, technical communication students can function as symbolic-analytic workers and information architects as they synthesize technical expertise with cultural dimensions in order to analyze a specific audience for a deliverable such as technical instructions.

Finally, I offer a pedagogical approach to introducing heuristics of technical expertise and cultural dimensions into the service-level technical communication classroom. Specifically, I introduce my heuristic approach to audience analysis in the classroom: The Technical Frame.

Presentation Slides





















If you are so inclined, or if you suffer from insomnia, you can read more about my conference presentations at Academia.edu.

-Safari Bob

Technical Communication: What is it Anyway?

Behind any written document there exists a synthesis of three components: the author, the subject, and the audience (or reader). All three elements work together to create meaning and each has responsibilities in this relationship.

Different genres of writing emphasize different relationships between the three components of a document. A novel emphasizes the relationship between the author and the audience while an informative essay (like this one) concentrates on the exploration of a subject by an author. Technical writing emphasizes the relationship between the subject and the audience; the author or authors are secondary in this dynamic. In many ways, a technical document can be confusing to the reader if the author is too prominent in the text.

To illustrate how this relationship between the reader and the subject works in a technical document consider the user’s manual for you car. You may glance at it when you first buy your vehicle but most often you only refer to the manual when you want information—and usually in response to some question or problem. As the reader (or user), you require information. Perhaps your brake lights are burnt out and you need to replace the bulbs so you consult the user’s manual. Even the title of this document privileges the relationship between the subject and the audience in that no byline is found on your user’s manual for your vehicle! You don’t care who wrote it, you just need information—now!

Defining Technical Writing

This genre of writing has many nuances that are reflected in the multiplicity of terms used to label it including technical communication, professional writing, technical rhetoric, and professional communication to name a few. There are two major dichotomies at work when anyone tries to define this discipline: professional/technical and communication/writing.

Initially, technical writing evolved out of a need to transmit specific technical information to users who did not understand the jargon of engineers. Every academic discipline and industry arena possess certain terminology or uses of words that are either unique to that community or used in a unique manner that the general public does not explicitly understand. Soon after WWII, Americans were able to buy the first televisions, transistor radios, kitchen appliances, and other products of technology that were new to the thinking of the general populace. Engineers were more concerned with creating new products than to communicate to non-engineers how to use them. Someone needed to translate and thus technical writing became a recognized profession.

Soon other professions and industries began to notice that they could also benefit from this kind of specialized skill. Writers were hired to transmit information from not only scientific and electronic industries but also those of medicine, pharmaceuticals, computers, software, and education began to use specialized writers to convey instructions, write internal reports, and craft grant proposals. Technical writing soon transcended technology and pervaded other professions; in essence technical writing is now just one genre within a multiplicity of professional writing contexts.

In addition to multiple professions using specialized writing to convey specific information through print, another need was soon realized: a need to reach specific audiences through other means than the written page. More and more specific information is being disseminated orally and visually to audiences of different cultures and in different settings. Managers had to present findings to higher levels of management, new medicines had to be explained to global communities, and instructions for products and services had to be understood by customers with different expectations and learning contexts. Professional writers are moving beyond solely written media (whether printed or computer screen) to the arena of holistic communication.

In order to illustrate this point, consider our earlier example: your car’s user manual. If you were to consult the manual for directions to change a burnt-out bulb in your taillight, chances are that you will encounter other symbols than just written text. Most manuals have illustrations designed to convey information to a specific audience—you. You see pictures with step-by-step instruction including visual representations of parts and arrows that portray movement. In addition, you may encounter colors such as red or yellow, which may have other meanings in other cultures. Writing specialists now have to understand how icons or figures can transmit specific directions outside of written text.

We are now in the position to define technical (or professional) communication: to provide specific information to a specific audience for a specific purpose or use. Undoubtedly you noticed throughout this article my repeated use of the term “specific.” This qualifier is vital to our understanding of this discipline and merits a closer examination.

Specificity

If you remember, technical (and professional) writing emphasizes the dynamic between the subject of the document and the reader of that document. More than any other pairing (author/subject or author/audience), this presupposes a sense of urgency. A novel or an essay can wait; a burnt-out taillight cannot. This urgency is seldom experienced in a general way and results from a specific problem to be solved on the part of the reader. You are the one with the burnt-out taillight and you need to know how to change it. You are a specific person with a specific problem that needs a specific solution.

To solve this specific problem, you need specific information that is clear, concise, and presented in such a way that you can access and use it. If the information is crafted with technical jargon or obscure language, it is at best time consuming to translate and at worst useless to you in your situation. You are the specific user; you bought the car and they gave you that manual. Technical communicators specialize in analyzing what specific kinds of people would buy that car and in what specific contexts you would need to use the manual. Taillights burn out and clear information should be constructed in anticipation of that specific need.

Another, often unspoken, aspect of a technical document is that of a specific shelf life. Novels and essays are often written for broader audiences and with a sense of timelessness. Most genres that emphasize the author in the dynamic aim for longevity. Technical documents are tied to a specific audience with a specific purpose. When the audience is informed and the purpose fulfilled, technical documents lose urgency; they lose relevance. Cars rust and are junked, computer software quickly becomes dated, and instructions are learned and no longer needed. Technical documents form from urgency and that urgency creates contexts of specificity by which all technical documents are judged useful, confusing, or irrelevant.

Conclusion

I have defined technical communication as providing specific information to a specific audience for a specific purpose or use. Technical documents are used with urgency that creates contexts of specificity that encompass usability, clarity, audience, intent, and shelf life. In a world where the boundaries of countries, language, culture, and industry (even workscapes) continue to overlap and even, perhaps, disappear, technical communicators will become more valuable and pervasive within other contexts of specificity and utility in other professions and industry. I leave you with these questions to consider: How can technical communicators influence future conventions of technology? Paper is portable; computers are accessible through ubiquitous networks. How are future contexts of specificity going to be addressed by technical communicators in the light of future urgency?

-Safari Bob

Book Review: "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

I have been wrestling with this question: How would a rhetorician approach Metaphors We Live By? Certainly, the various approaches possible to rhetoricians is as diverse as the number of rhetoricians who interpret. After some time, I find myself wondering about the role of rhetoric in myth construction. I wonder if rhetoric functions to shape mythos—in the construction of gestalt. The one problem I see with this book is what happens when a culture constructs competing gestalts; in other words, what happens when a culture understands a metaphor in such a way as to construct two (or more) opposed interpretations of experience?

Certainly, metaphors can allow two people or groups of people to understand individual views of reality. The essence of metaphor is to understand one concept in the light of another [1, p. 5] and this comparison is best realized within a given culture. Still, within a given culture, conflicts can arise and these conflicts can produce competing metaphors [1, p. 23]. The authors argue that although individuals and sub-groups place priority on metaphors that reflect ways that are good and virtuous to them, “individual value systems are coherent with the major orientation metaphors of the main-stream culture” [1, p. 26]. So, one way to determine cohesion in a given culture is to explore the orientation metaphors (ie active is up) and the ontological metaphors (ie entity and substance) of a given social group. Thus, metaphors tend to be coherent across social strata [1, p. 44] and reflect may reflect a common conceptual system in which metaphors grounded by “virtue of systematic correlates within our experience” [1, p. 58]. This cohesion allows metaphors to emerge naturally in a given culture because what it highlights corresponds to what the members of a given culture collectively experience [1, p. 68].

At this point in the book, the authors introduce the notion of a gestalt: a whole construct of meaning that humans find more basic than the parts [1, p. 70]. This is a basic tenant of prototype theory, which examines the way that different social groups understand or place value on the world in which they exist. For instance, when one is presented with the category of ‘snake’ people from different cultures would react differently. In some cultures a snake is a symbol of evil while in others it is a symbol of wisdom. The authors eventually complicate this idea with the notion of ‘truth’ by which they reject the ‘myths’ of objective category and subjective interpretation. Rather, they advocate that categories such as truth are best understood within the “interactional [sic.] properties that make sense only relative to human functioning” [1, p. 164]. Interaction properties and experiential gestalts form the “experientialist myth” that can best explain how humans understand and function in their world [1, p. 228]. This understanding “emerges from interaction, from constant negotiation with the environment and other people” [1, p. 230]. Meaning is negotiated and metaphor is crucial to create rapport and to communicate the nature of unshared experience [1, p. 231].

My question is still unanswered by the “experientialist myth”, however. I think that, in this theory, rhetoric is instrumental in the negotiation of meaning between competing views but I am not sure that the authors address a possibility that one culture may actually hold competing and inconsistent experiential gestalts. They seem to assume that a culture is more cohesive than a pluralistic entity like the United States. Earlier [1, pp. 22-24] they give lip service to cultural difference only to move to a more basic (or universal) understanding of metaphor. What happens when competing gestalts, within a given culture, exist (or emerge) to explain categories such as truth?

-Safari Bob

References

[1] Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-46801-1

Science, Metaphor, and Aristotle's Informed Citizenry

In the recent article “Trapped in a World View" [1], string theorists recognize that one factor that may be impairing their ability to express a grand unified theory is language. David Bohm, a leading quantum theorist, believes that European languages “perfectly mirror the classical world of Newtonian physics” while languages that are rich in verbs more closely reflect the process-based expressions of quantum effects [1. p. 43]. To compensate, quantum theorists are exploring the Algonquian family of languages that incorporate a wide variety of verb forms. This new power of expression “may give physics the inspiration to leap forward” [Ibid.].

This article got me thinking about Natalie Angier's [2] text and, more specifically, how do the conventions of the English language constrain the representation of the complex concepts that Angier is trying to popularize? Is this the reason that she chose to use flowery language to convey her subject?

As I consider these questions two ideas come to mind: (1) The metaphor may be powerful but inadequate means to express abstract concepts (however imprecisely), and (2) What is the responsibility of an ‘informed citizenry’ (I am thinking of Aristotle’s concept of audience [3, Rhetorica, Book 2, Chapter 1]) in response to scientific rhetoric to “adopt, modify, or reject it” [4, p. 41; fifth assumption of rhetoric]. Perhaps the central question is: What are the responsibilities of both science and citizenry in contributing to a forum that allows meaning to be most faithfully constructed?

Science seems to be burdened with the responsibility to convey meaning and inform its audience, although Angier seems to convey frustration on the part of scientists to reach a public audience. Craig Waddell describes how the audience was carefully selected and constrained to not “repeat the somewhat chaotic experience of the two public hearings sponsored by the city council the previous summer” [5, p. 385]. In fact, Waddell provides a convincing argument that pathos was effectively used, if not to convey understanding of the science, to influence how the audience decided to view the need for that scientific research.

Certainly the essays in Richard W. Grinnell's [6] text take pains to express the purpose, challenge and role of science in layman terms. However, Carl Sagan transcends the idea of methods for articulating scientific concepts to the public and calls for an informed citizenry to take responsibility in this dialectic. For Sagan, public understanding of science is central to national security and “the submediocre performance of American youngsters in science and math, and the widespread adult ignorance and apathy about science and math, should sound an urgent alarm” [6, p. 18]. This apathy is central to the discussion; how can scientists and laypeople converse if the public doesn’t want to listen?

Of course this apathy may lie in the inability of scientists to express complex concepts – even Sagan believed that most people have an interest in science (the driver) [6, p. 12]. What if this inability to express complex occulted concepts is endemic to the English language? Certainly mathematics can express the subtleties of quantum theory but how many people can speak ‘Math?’ If physics can better be understood in non-Western languages (such as the Algonquian family) should the public be expected to have some grasp of these other languages in order to engage in the dialogue with Science?

Frankly, I have no idea. I do find the notion of exploring other languages in scientific inquiry fascinating. When I consider the Thomas article (in Grinnell) on Alchemy, I wonder what role the various languages (Arabic, Latin, etc) played in formulating that discipline and the future discipline of chemistry? What would physics be like if it had been explored, in the West, in Chinese?

All this is moot, I suppose, as science in America continues to be pursued (presumably) by English-speaking scientists and conveyed to an (primarily) English-speaking public. Still, how can this open the potential cadre of metaphors available to express abstract scientific concepts? How will science be represented to an increasingly global citizenry?

-Safari Bob

References

[1] “Trapped in a World View.” (2008, Jan. 5-11). New Scientist Vol. 192 No. 2637.

[2] Angier, N. (2007). The Canon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN: 978-0-618-24295-5

[3] Aristotle. (2001). The Basic Works of of Aristotle. Richard McKeon (Ed.). NY: The Modern Library. ISBN: 0-375-75799-6

[4] Lindemann (reference to come)

[5] Waddell, C. (1990). "The Role of Pathos in the Decision-Making Process: A Study in the Rhetoric of Science Making Policy." QJS 76: 381-400.

[6] Grinnell, R., W. (Ed.) (2007). Science and Society. NY: Pearson Longman. ISBN: 0-321-31811-0

How is Science Knowledge Created?

The last few weeks, I have been musing on a question: How is science knowledge created? I suppose that one may believe that knowledge constitutes facts or (perhaps more cynically) trivia or one may espouse the Aristotelian theorem that knowledge is sui genesis and can only be discovered. Perhaps scientific knowledge can be discovered through proper classification or through replication of experiment. At the heart of this question is a comparison of competing views of how knowledge is created.

These competing viewpoints are the key; knowledge is created by consensus. Consensus is crafted from competing conversations that clash and crystallize into a common perspective. This perspective is what Kuhn [1] would call a paradigm and Gross [2] has labeled a “field of argument.” Foucault describes this process of perspective-making as competing discourses converging to reflect an “epistemic shift.” He defines the episteme as “the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems…” [3, 191]. These competing dialogues essentially create a shift in thinking or in the creation of ‘truth.’ This creation of knowledge is enabled by the use of language and, more specifically, rhetoric.

Both Kuhn and Gross investigate the use of rhetoric to present new ideas and eventually establish new modes of thinking. For Kuhn the paradigm is born by anomaly and forged in crisis. For Gross, rhetoric plays a (perhaps) more prevalent role in the clashing of competing methods of inquiry. For Darian [4], rhetoric takes an active role in the creation of knowledge by actually being instrumental in the formation and definition of categories and subcategories. In all three, rhetoric is vital to construct discourse that eventually will form convention.

Baake [5] demonstrates that a chief tool of rhetoric to influence the formations of knowledge is the metaphor. When I first encountered Baake’s metaphor of harmonics I was skeptical (it reminded me of Leff’s [6] use of vibrate) but I have warmed to the usage. I especially like “an image consistent with my argument would be that of scientific knowledge as musical notes assembled into some kind of meaningful and evocative pattern” [5, p. 7]. In some ways, this view of metaphor could be consistent with Foucault’s object of formation.

Although these readings do demonstrate the important role of verbal rhetoric in shaping scientific knowledge, I do wonder about the role of diagrams and visual models in this process. For instance, Gross does note in passing: “the persuasiveness of the crucial experiment depends on its replicability; but the crucial experiment in this first paper is accompanied by neither diagram nor clear directions” [2,p. 9]. Later, in his praise of Optiks, Gross reduces the role of diagrams to only inference: “the rhetorical presence of Newton’s experimental method is enhanced by the sheer number of experiments described, and by the quantitative meticulousness with which their methods and results are reported” [2, p. 12]. What is the role of diagram in the rhetorical formation of scientific knowledge?

Certainly science communicators use diagrams to understand complex scientific ideas (the electron, proteins, and so on) but this rhetorical tool is conspicuously absent from our readings. Darian makes prodigious use of diagrams in his classification models [4, see 184 as an example] but these are little more than genealogical trees. How can visual metaphors contribute to the understanding of “complexity” or “paradigm”? A paradigm is essentially a rubric; could the notion of scaffolding better illustrate this concept? What about a Vinn diagram to illustrate the harmonics of “rules” in complexity theory?

Perhaps the lack of visuals in these readings in rhetoric demonstrates a preconception of rhetoric as speech—even though most rhetorical critics analyze texts. Most recently rhetoric is explored within the discipline of speech and yet visuals have long been a part of oration. Today PowerPoint slides are ubiquitous in all disciplines—including science. How do they contribute to the formation, explication and dissemination of theory?

I wonder if visual representations of complex concepts contribute more to a deductive (if/then) approach to investigation rather than the inductive approach that is prominent in the scientific method today. Perhaps visual representations in inductive methods are more diachronic and tend to illustrate specific steps within the process. I am not sure but this may be an interesting study.

-Safari Bob

References
[1] Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-45808-3

[2] Gross, A. G. (1988). "On the Shoulders of Giants: Seventeenth-Century Optics as an Argument Field." QJS 74 (1): 1-17

[3] Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. A.M. Sheridan Smith (trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN: 0-394-71106-8

[4] Darin, S. (1998). "The Language of Classifying in Introductory Science Texts." In Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse, John T. Battalio (ed.). Stanford: Ablex Publishing Company: 181-206

[5] Baake, K. (2003). Metaphor and Knowledge. Albany NY: The University of New York Press. ISBN: 0-7914-5743-5

[6] Leff. (1980, Fall). “Interpretation and the Art of the Rhetorical Critic” WJSC: 337-349

Edwin Black and Tech Comm

Why is Edwin Black (and Neo-Aristotelian Rhetorical Criticism) not used more in Technical Communication (TC)? As I understand it, one great criticism leveled at Neo-Aristotelian (NA) criticism is that it implies an impartial and contingent audience. In order to conduct a NA criticism, the rhetorician must delve deeply into the historical context of the artifact in the hopes of understanding the audience at hand. This is also something that TC strives to do for their deliverables. In other words, can NA criticism and/or Edwin Black's method aid technical communicators to develop effective strategies for audience analysis?

Rhetorical Transaction

For Black, a rhetorical transaction is a complex and a process of three elements of rhetoric: strategies, situations, and effects. These elements are understood as the following [1, p. 133-135]:

• Rhetorical Strategies: the characteristics of the discourse
  
• Rhetorical Situations: extralinguistic influences on the audience
  
• Audience Effects: responses to the strategies in the situations
  

Taken together, these three elements converge to be a complex process (or phenomenon) that can be articulated to describe the effect of an artifact (or deliverable) which he names the rhetorical transaction. Certainly, one could approach TC through this heuristic in most genres including document design, proposals, and web design.

For instance, what are the characteristics of a given deliverable? This sounds like a genre to me. A proposal should contain certain elements while a resume would include different elements. All technical communicators should thoughtfully consider the conventional elements in light of the situation and audience effects. Also, "extralinguistic" influences sounds, to me, close to document design and other strategies of visual rhetoric while Usability would address the audience responses. All three work together to adequately describe the all important context of any deliverable. How would our service-level TC classes be enhanced if we, as instructors, thought about teaching writing through the lens of Black's Rhetorical Transaction?

Of course this is not a comprehensive treatment of Black's method but simply the initial musing for me on this matter. Black's subsequent writing on "Exhortation" and "Argument" may also offer good strategies for TC. I am simply wondering at this point. Hmm.. here is another dissertation topic.

-Safari Bob


References

[1] Black, E. (1978). Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

What is the Role of Rhetoric Before a Biased Audience?

My reading of Aristotle contends that he approaches argument as contingent – or happening in the moment. Ideally, the rhetor addresses an audience that chooses sides at that moment or at least within the corpus of the oration. The effect of the rhetor is judged by the choice of the audience to either accept or reject the argument en toto at the expense of the opposition. Victory and defeat both depend on the skill of the rhetor and the construction of the argument while the audience is presumed to have little or no stake in the decision. My question is this: What is the role of rhetoric if the audience is biased (or intractable) before the argument commences? How is the purpose of rhetoric different before a hostile or sympathetic group of stakeholders? What is the role of neo-Aristotelian criticism in determining the motives (hidden or declared) of the audience that sits in judgment of the efficacy of the argument?

Synthesis

Wichelns addresses the nature of the audience through the eyes of the rhetor: “Something should be said of structure, something of adaptation to the immediate audience, whose convictions and habits of thought, whose literary usages, and whose general cultural background all condition the work both of writer and speaker” (15). The function of the orator is seen as “influencing men in some concrete situation” (24) and her method of imparting these ideas to her hearers (26) is analyzed. He concludes that we “must examine more thoroughly…the interactions of the inventive genius, the popularizing talent, and the public mind” (32) but, for Wichelns, the rhetor is still privileged with if not a neutral audience, certainly a sympathetic one.

Selzer provides an excellent primer of rhetorical analysis as critical reading of texts and provides a summary of three general ideas of audience (283) but fails to address the motives for accepting or rejecting a given argument. Audience is treated as neutral to or even “implied” (294) by the rhetor and persuasion is contingent on the skills and choices of the one constructing the argument. In his example, he demonstrates that Friedman was vulnerable to counterattack by opposition through a weak metaphor rather than the opposition’s predilection to do so based on their stake in the argument. Why did Friedman’s rhetoric not persuade his opposition?

Perhaps it is unfair to ask the rhetorician – or at least neo-Aristotelian criticism - to identify the motives of the audience. In fact, Leff and Mohrmann in their analysis of the Lincoln address at Cooper Union demonstrate that Lincoln actually was not addressing a potentially hostile Southern audience (181). Hitchcock, in his analysis of Jonathan Edwards, explores a certainly sympathetic audience (I can’t help it; he was preaching to the choir) and articulates the stylistic modes Edwards used to help the congregation concentrate on his message (117 for example). Perhaps this question truly lies in the notion of ethos in that if you truly disagree with the position of the speaker, how can you see her as credible?

-Safari Bob

References

Hitchcock, Orville A. "Jonathan Edwards" American Public Address, pp. 213-237.

Leff, Michael C. and Gerald P. Mohrmann. "Lincoln at Cooper Union: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Text" in Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism, pp. 173-187.

Selzer, Jack. "Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers" Chapter 10, pp. 279-307.

Wichelns, Herbert A. "The Literary Criticism of Oratory" in Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism, pp. 1-32.