Deck 10: Contemporary Rhetoric II: Situation, Story, Display

Question 1

What are the key terms in Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad? What do the terms describe?

Answer 1

Burke's dramatistic pentad is an analytical lens for understanding and evaluating human motivation. The five elements of the pentad include: the act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. The act is what was done, and the scene is the setting of the act. The agent is the one who performs the act, while the agency is the means by which the agent accomplishes the act. The purpose is the agent's purpose or intended goal for performing the act. Burke's dramatistic pentad is his most famous contribution to rhetorical theory.

Question 2

What is Wayne Booth's position of the possibility of an author of fiction being "invisible"?

Answer 2

Booth writes that it is impossible for an author of fiction to become completely invisible. He believes that the "author's voice is always present, regardless of how thoroughly it is disguised." Booth believed that authors pretend not to be present in the voices of their characters, but that though an author may disguise themselves in many ways, they may never disappear. Booth's ideas about the rhetoric of fiction connect with Bakhtin and Burke's belief that a rhetor cannot adopt a neutral stance, as well as with the concepts of motives within the symbolic arena.

Question 3

What quality did Mikhail Bakhtin find intriguing in the novels of Dostoevsky?

Answer 3

Bakhtin believed that it took multiple "voices" or positions to constitute the social world, and that not all voices are valued equally. He saw novels, particularly Dostoevsky's, as an expression and celebration of diverse voices, and that through this humanity one might discover "the best possible avenues to truth." Bakhtin admired Dostoevsky's novels particularly because of their polyphonic nature. Each character is fully developed and speaks their perspective on the world, without being devalued. Bakhtin saw Dostoevsky's novels as a model for allowing equal voices and varied perspectives.

Question 4

Why did Bakhtin consider that discourse is always ideological and social?

Question 5

What did Walter Fisher mean by practical wisdom?

Question 6

What did Walter Fisher mean by coherence and fidelity?

Question 7

What did Ernest Bormann notice about the role of stories in groups?

Question 8

What is meant by the "rhetoric of display"?

Question 9

What does Nicholas Carr mean by the phrase, "ecology of interruption technology"?

Question 10

What is Laurie Gries' specific concern when she writes that "language has been granted too much power in rhetorical studies"?

Question 11

What quality of social media content algorithms does Zeynep Tufekci point out?

Question 12

What is Andrea Lunsford's "new literacy"?

Question 13

What is materialism, and how does this movement redefine agency?

Question 14

What are the reasons Douglas Eyman sets out for articulating "a specific formulation for digital rhetoric"?

Question 15

After reading this chapter, what argument could be made for broadening the conception of rhetoric beyond public speeches or widely circulated written documents?

Question 16

In your opinion, what kinds of rhetoric would Kenneth Burke's theory be most likely to help one to understand?

Question 17

Identify a novel or movie in which you can identify a rhetorical component. Explain how this novel or movie is rhetorical. Is your example "polyphonic" in Bakhtin's sense of the term?

Question 18

Would classical theories of rhetoric be adequate for explaining and evaluating visual rhetoric, or do we need a new rhetorical theory of the rhetoric of display?

Question 19

What role has narrative played in the life of groups of which you have been a part?

Question 20

What factors might a rhetorical theory for the digital age include that earlier theories of rhetoric have not? How, for example, would such a theory accommodate the social networking phenomenon as contrasted to a traditional speaker-audience model?

Question 21

What changes might be made in how we approach the online experience that would render it more productive of civil discourse that might improve democracy?

Question 22

Kenneth Burke used the term ___________________ to describe the fact that every language or choice of words becomes a filter through which we see the world.

Question 23

For Walter Fisher, the five criteria of fact, relevance, consequence, consistency, and transcendent issue should be used to evaluate the ___________________ of a narrative.

Question 24

__________________, one of the most influential proponents of rhetoric as situational, and author of The Rhetorical Situation, emphasized identifying the exigence, or problem, that a rhetorical act is in response to.

Question 25

Michel Bakhtin, who was against a univocal or fixed use of language, elevated the concept he termed ___________________, which meant the vast variety of language use evident in a culture.

Question 26

A recent development in rhetorical theory is the rhetoric of ___________________, which is a movement that analyzes the visual aspects of rhetoric.

Question 27

To express a state of identification, Kenneth Burke uses the term ____________________, which he borrowed from theology, to communicate humans' desire for a commonality of substance.

Question 28

Which of the following terms does Ernest Bormann define as the basic plots which are repeated in group or organizational stories?

A) Organizational sage
B) Fantasy themes
C) Fantasy types
D) Inside jokes

Question 29

Which of the following rhetoricians is famous for the dramatistic pentad, which analyzes the act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose?

A) Kenneth Burke
B) Wayne Booth
C) Michel Bakhtin
D) Walter Fisher

Question 30

Michel Bakhtin was drawn to which of the following novelists for his ability to write "a plurality of independent and unmerged voices," that allowed for equal and developed perspectives in dialogue?

A) Tolstoy
B) Dostoevsky
C) Turgenev
D) Pushkin

Question 31

Walter Fisher's concept of practical wisdom as a means for communities to determine values and understand justice relates to which of the following classic rhetorical concepts?

A) Kairos
B) Lumos
C) Phronesis
D) Eunoia

Question 32

Which of the following terms did Michel Bakhtin say was the basic unit of discourse that represented a personal statement full of potential meaning?

A) Sentence
B) Letter
C) Utterance
D) Sound

Question 33

Both Burke and Bakhtin believed in which of the following views on words and language?

A) They are neutral to the author
B) They participate in constructing the world
C) Their meaning is not decided corporately
D) None of the above

Question 34

One of the defining characteristics of contemporary rhetoric is that scholars have emphasized rhetoric as situational and focus on the underlying structures of rhetoric in cultural contexts.

Question 35

Wayne Booth, as a literary critic, argued that the author of a book exercises rhetorical control over a narrative and can completely disguise or remove their voice from the reader's view.

Question 36

Andrea Lunsford theorizes that the "literacy revolution" taking place with the rise of digital technology exhibits qualities that directly connect to the classical rhetorical tradition.

Question 37

Digital rhetorics represent a combination of a rhetoric of display with traditional textual presentations of rhetoric.

Question 38

For Bormann, symbolic convergence is the longer story a group tells of its history that results from its shared vision and stories.

Question 39

For Lloyd Bitzer, the rhetorical audience is only comprised of those who are capable of being influenced by discourse and capable of being mediators of change.

Question 40

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Bakhtin, chains of assertion and response that reveal the presence of different voices.

Question 41

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Burke's "grammar of motives," consisting of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose.

Question 42

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-What Bitzer defines as "an imperfection marked by urgency," part of the rhetorical situation.

Question 43

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-In Bitzer, a rhetorical response that is dictated to the rhetor by the rhetorical situation.

Question 44

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-What Burke refers to as "an arousing and fulfilling desire in an audience."

Question 45

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Bakhtin's term for quality of narrative in which each character is fully developed and speaks fully his or her perspective on the world.

Question 46

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Booth's insight that, in narrative, "the author's judgment is always present" in a novel.

Question 47

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Burke's definition of rhetoric.

Question 48

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Burke's term to describe the fact that every language or choice of words becomes a filter through which we perceive the world.

Question 49

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-A term referring to the observation of Andrea Lunsford that we are witnessing in digital literacy a return to traditional rhetorical concerns-discourse as audience-adapted, persuasive, responsive, and planned.

Question 50

Provide the names of, and briefly define, the components of Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad. What is his pentad advanced as a means of explaining or discussing?

Question 51

Define Kenneth Burke's notion of form, and briefly describe any three types of form identified by Burke.

Question 52

Provide and briefly define the three essential components of Lloyd Bitzer's "rhetorical situation." Relate these components to Bitzer's notion of a "fitting response."

Question 53

Describe the quality that Mikhail Bakhtin found intriguing in the novels of Dostoevsky. What name did Bakhtin give this quality?

Question 54

Some literary critics have argued that the author should remain invisible in the work of fiction. What is Wayne Booth's position on this possibility? What does he mean by the term "the rhetoric of fiction"?

Question 55

What qualities does Andrea Lunsford believe define the new digital literacy?

Question 56

Draw on two theorists discussed in Chapter Ten to describe how the notion of rhetoric can be expanded to encompass human communication activities beyond the traditional speech or written argument. What kinds of activities has each sought to account for as rhetorical? What kinds of theoretical mechanisms has each developed to assist readers in understanding a realm of human rhetorical activity broader than the speech?

Question 57

Provide an overview of the rhetorical theory of Kenneth Burke, as discussed in the text. Specifically, what is the goal of his work? What is he seeking to encourage or to bring about by his theory?