Question of the Week 10

Excuse me while I act like a nerd and answer the question of the week the same day it was posted… but c’mon, it’s the last one! Show some enthusiasm people! WOO 😀

Anyway:

What’s one NEW thing you learned this semester in this class? Identify what you learned and how you imagine you’ll apply it to some other aspect of your life.

Before I took English 121, I did not now the first thing about a “rhetorical situation”, let alone the importance of my audience. When Professor Ludeker stood in front of the class and asked us what we thought a rhetorical situation meant I was confident that I had the answer. But then she said it had nothing to do with rhetorical questions. Oops.

As Ms. Ludeker explained to us, a rhetorical situation is pretty much any circumstance that involves one person using any sort of communication to influence or change the perspective of another person (or persons). That means that a huge portion of our own communication can probably be categorized as a rhetorical situation.

Of the four elements that make up a rhetorical situation (author, text, audience, and context), I think the most important one is audience. If there is one thing that I could take away from this class, it would be the importance of identifying my audience and knowing how to reach them. When you are trying to communicate, you have to know who your audience is in order to figure out what exactly they are expecting out of you.  Otherwise, the whole purpose of your message will be useless. For example, if you write an essay to PETA members telling them to buy the new premium steak you offer at your restaurant, your inbox will probably fill up with hate mail pretty fast.  

I think understanding who your audience is will be beneficial in all circumstances that require communication. Anytime I need to persuade, argue, or define a certain topic to people, I can do it properly because I’ll know how they (my audience) will want me to communicate with them and I’ll also know what their expectations are in regards to the topic at hand.

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