Journal Entry 6

1. Lloyd Bitzer states that rhetorical situation is not context,which is simply a condition of communication.
2. Bitzer states that “rhetorical situation” has three parts; exigences, the audience needs to be limited in decision and action, and this limitation needs to influence the person speaking to the audience. These three parts make up a complex situation with people, relations, objects and events that creates a problem. This problem can be solved when discourse changes people’s actions to modify or fix the problem.
3. “Exigence” is a defect or something that needs to be fixed. Exigences can only be considered rhetorical if they can be changed. Bitzer gives the examples of weather, death, and natural disasters that would be considered exigences, but not rhetorical because they cannot be fixed. Exigences that can be fixed by other means than discourses would not be considered rhetorical as well.