Forms of Rhetoric: Applause

Political speeches weren’t always about vocal audience reaction and applause. Now, however, one of the main ways that we show our appreciation and approval is with applause. Speeches are written with deliberate pauses to give the audience the opportunity to applaud partway along.

President Obama can hardly finish a sentence without the crowd breaking into applause. He can’t even blow his nose in public without being applauded for it. In fact, we often measure the success of a speaker by the round of applause that they receive at the end of their speech. The media jumps on it because it is such a tangible indicator of how the audience feels.

Applause is visible in other areas of life as well. When there’s turbulence in the air and the pilot of a plane manages to land it safely, the passengers will show their gratitude with applause. For long-anticipated movies, the hype that surrounds the film often leads to applause at the end of it (though this usually pertains only to opening-night showings at a movie theatre). Applause at the end of a stage theatre production is always expected, so to show even more appreciation, people do a standing ovation for the actors bowing on stage. Even this, however, has become increasingly more common, because of our habit of applauding over minute events.

One of the problems with applause is that it is used so frequently. The meaning of it has changed. It is expected; it is almost mandatory. In our society, if there is no applause, then something has gone seriously wrong with the rhetorician’s speech or performance. Sometimes, for example if an actor on stage forgets their lines, the audience sympathizes so much with the humiliation that the actor must be feeling that they applaud even louder to compensate. Thus it loses its “rewarding” aspect.

Applause is loud and easy to do. All it takes is the simple act of pressing one’s hands together with some measure of force and speed (though even a considerable amount of force and speed are not necessary, especially if there is a very large crowd of people). It’s a way for the audience to give back to the performer: applause signals agreements and support. It is interesting, then, to consider why we applaud when the performer clearly cannot see or hear us, such as in the movie theatre. In this case, we are not applauding for the performer. Instead, we are either applauding to assert our own position so that others can see what we think of the performance, or we applaud to show that we are a part of the appreciative group, when everyone around us is applauding.

It is rare that we will be in a group of people with everyone else applauding and we are not. The pressure causes us to start clapping, too. If we don’t clap, everyone wonders why we are not appreciating the same thing that they are. Because of this, applause is also an automatic response of our society. It is a way to identify with the group so that we are not separated from our peers. Applauding, and a lack of applause, are both measures of our values and identities as individuals and as a group.

Forms of Rhetoric: Dress, Style, and Self-presentation

The rhetoric of self-presentation speaks louder about us, in many cases, than our voices ever can. What we wear and how we wear it is associated with certain assumptions. First impressions are made before we even open our mouths.

In Mimi Spencer’s 101 Things to Do Before You Diet, she discusses this very issue. Getting to know both our personal strengths and weaknesses is helpful so that we can emphasize our strengths and play down our weaknesses. Her book encourages readers to get comfortable with who they are. By accepting ourselves, we can see room for improvement and build upon good character traits so that we grow into the people that we want to be.

The type of clothes and how we wear them can be beneficial or detrimental to our cause, whatever it may be. Following the latest trends might seem like a fashionable move to make, but more often that not, a) the trend doesn’t suit our body type, and b) we feel uncomfortable in trendy clothes and make them look even worse than they already do.

Dressing for the appropriate occasion is important here as well. Showing up in our finest at a coffee shop is unlikely to make us feel at ease, and it will almost certainly draw strange looks from the other patrons who will then be less likely to take us seriously. Similarly, if we throw on a ripped or stained t-shirt before giving a presentation in front of an audience, it will probably have the effect of the audience being appalled, unimpressed and dissuaded from agreeing with our position.

The key here is to figure out what we feel comfortable and confident with and to work with it. If jeans and a t-shirt are truly the only clothes that you feel comfortable in, you might need to step it up a notch. Examine why you feel uncomfortable wearing anything else, and take it slowly- try wearing a slightly more formal shirt, or different pants than jeans, or wear nicer shoes. Even slipping on a couple of accessories- jewelry or a scarf- can be a good bridge between what you’re comfortable and uncomfortable with.

It’s important to get out of our comfort zones because we never know when we will be thrust outside of those zones without warning. It pays to be prepared for any such circumstance. Above all, if we wear what we feel confident in- and if we can try to expand our comfort zone so that we feel confident in a wider variety of outfits suitable to different occasions- it will create a better sense of goodwill between ourselves and the people around us.

The style of dress that we use speaks volumes about who we are. We can breed confidence with the clothes that we wear and the familiarity and comfort of how we wear it. All of this can be used as a rhetorical strategy to convey our personal values and beliefs to others without the necessity of vocalizing it (or as a way to reinforce what we do vocalize). What does your personal style say about you?

Forms of Rhetoric: Writing on the Environment

One of my classes this year is entitled Studies in the Rhetorics of Non Fiction. Specifically, the focus is Writing on the Environment.

Writing on the Environment, or Nature Writing, as it is also called, often brings to mind two styles of writing: first, the intensity of, for example, a Greenpeace report; and second, the flowery passages written by great writers of literature from hundreds of years ago. Both of these styles are turn-offs to most people. The first style appears too brusque, embarrassing, or guilt-inducing, causing the reader to roll their eyes in exasperation at the prophetic notion that the world is coming to an end. The second style appears too inconsequential and boring for readers to be able to pay attention to for very long.*

At the risk of students believing that this course was all about writing poetry, my professor prefers the term Writing on the Environment as opposed to Nature Writing. I am inclined to agree. The way in which we term things has a profound influence on our thoughts about it. The phrase Nature Writing also doesn’t seem to encompass all of the different styles and genres that can be identified as subtypes of the phrase Writing on the Environment.

For the purposes of simplicity sake, however, we are referring in class to this style of writing as Nature Writing- it is easier to say. Much of what we do is out of convenience and ease. This leads to an important question within the study of rhetoric; namely, does our choice to use the simpler terms then affect how we view the subject that we are using the term for? That alone is a question which, when we really think about it, can empower us: depending on the terms that we choose to use, we can manipulate how such a thing will be seen by the world, and therefore we can direct certain perspectives on the world just by being careful in our word choice.

Nature Writing brings to mind the peacefulness of strolling along a walking trail in a forest, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells of greenery and birds. It is a poetically calming style. Writing on the Environment represents a more serious, professional attitude. The use of “environment” rather than “nature” also implies responsibility and action, because the word is often associated to human activity. “Nature”, on the other hand, is usually viewed as something separate to human society. The End of Nature by Bill McKibben is a compelling account of this issue, among others.

There are many sub-genres of this style of writing, so to pinpoint exact characteristics of it is no easy task. Writing on the Environment can fluctuate from natural history information to field guides to adventure writing to the ramble to man’s interaction with nature. Factual and abstract, imperial and argumentative, impersonal and having a voice, nature itself and the writer him/herself all have the potential to be present within this style.

Part of this is because of the nature writer’s dilemma: we do not know nature itself and we do not know how to define it. The terms that we use to describe nature become the only way we see, rather than a lens through which to see the world. Words, therefore, are just as much an imposition as they are a convenience (for more on this subject, refer to John Hay’s article, “The Nature Writer’s Dilemma”). As ever, the terms that we use will change how we view the world. It is this which nature writers can take advantage of to get their point across: when we know our audience and know our own material, we will be a better judge of conveying information.

*Please note that I don’t necessarily agree with either of those responses toward specific types of Nature Writing; that is simply how, I think, many people do often react to such genres.

Forms of Rhetoric: The Rant

The rant is one of my favourite rhetorical genres. It is characterized by a unique set of qualities that instantly capture attention and can really mesmerize an audience. Often the response that the rhetorician receives after embarking on a rant is either exasperated or amused, but people tend to really listen to a rant. It’s even a form of entertainment. Most stand-up comedians use the rant in their shows.

A few of the qualities that characterize the rant include:

- One-sided, uninterrupted, binary structure (someone’s right, someone’s wrong)

- Spontaneous, gestural, uncensored, intensely passionate emotion

- Rhetorical questions with repetition and a fast rate of articulation

Rants tend to be associated with arrogance, anger, and negativity. While someone is ranting, they are usually waiting for an opening to make their argument best heard. Timing, for a rant, is everything. Sometimes the person who is ranting will became completely engrossed in their rant and lose control, thus reducing their credibility, but in other situations the rhetorician is perfectly controlled. Rick Mercer is an expert at ranting and he always manages to rant with perfect poise. He is able to get his point across more effectively because of this.

One of the best examples of the rant genre is the infamous I Am Canadian Molson beer commercial. The commercial itself is full of binaries as the narrator declares his understanding of the differences between Canada and the USA (prime minister/president, peacekeeping/militaristic, diversity/assimilation, zed/zee), indicating that meaning is differential. Binaries show us that nothing means anything in and of itself. Things instead take their meaning from what they are opposed to.

Binaries are a key aspect to the rant. When someone is ranting, they are describing everything that they do not believe in, and through their rejection of some things they are selecting other things that they *do* believe in, even if they are not consciously aware of it. The I Am Canadian commercial shows that as Canadians, we don’t have a very clear identity. Instead we are aware of what we are not; we know what we do not want to be. From this we conclude that we must be the binary opposition.

The rant is implicitly linked to identity. There might even be an identity crisis going on. The only way, then, for the person who is ranting to determine their own identity, is to rant about that which they do not approve of. By eliminating specific possibilities for what their identity could potentially be, they can narrow it down to who and what they really are.

Forms of Rhetoric: The Jeremiad

The best way to explain the Jeremiad form of rhetoric is to think of it in terms of the origins of the name. Jeremiah was a Biblical prophet of doom and, as one of my professors so astutely put it, a performance artist. The Jeremiad, then, is really a political sermon, and is applied by powerful leaders in front of large audiences. Predicting misfortune is a way to frighten the audience- or society- into believing whatever the rhetorician wants them to believe.

The Jeremiad is specifically a form of epideictic rhetoric. Epideictic rhetoric refers to a lamentation (or, interestingly enough, celebration). It is the rhetoric of display and even social control: “the epideictic speech builds and creates a community for both speaker and audience, particularly… in times of crisis that threaten the society” (A Time of Shame and Sorrow, Murphy 271). This is arranged from combining the talk of doom with a hopeful word of what could happen if we only do as we are told.

Although the Jeremiad speaks to an audience and is bent upon social control, the way that it achieves this is through a divide-and-conquer method. Politicians such as George Bush who use the Jeremiad throughout their term point to the individual as being responsible for dealing with the crisis. The idea is that the person = the nation, and it is because of this basic premise that the politician is able to get away with saying that our individual sins are the problem. The system itself is assumed to not have any flaws at all, and it is therefore up to individual citizens to make changes. Only from there will the situation improve.

There are three parts to the structure of the Jeremiad:

1. It refers to either biblical or spiritual teaching (for example, with George Bush the spiritual teaching would be the American Dream or the American forefathers).

2. It demonstrates how the community has failed to live up to that teaching.

3. It suggests the idealistic place that we would be in if we repent and reform.

All of this results in uniting people together, making it perfect for political campaigns. The politician using the Jeremiad as their form of rhetoric convinces the people that our society is in a terrible state, and then the politician explains why they are the one person who has the solution to the problem. If they know how to wisely make use of the Jeremiad, it isn’t too difficult from there to get the votes they need.

The Jeremiad is an effective choice for politicians but can, for obvious reasons, be rather tiresome if you choose to use it on a daily basis. You’re better off leaving it for situations in which you are speaking to a large audience where people will more likely give in to group-think; using the Jeremiad in a one-on-one situation, though it could make for an amusing psychology experiment, will probably result in the other person backing slowly away from you.

Forms of Rhetoric: The Dramatistic Pentad

Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad goes hand in hand with the Narrative Paradigm because of the focus on human motivation and theatrics. The kind of language that we use and the way we express ourselves are strategies to convince others of our viewpoints. If the speaker has the ability to identify with the audience, they can then elicit sympathy.

The Dramatistic Pentad is made up of five elements:

1. Act: what happened.

2. Scene: where it happened. This includes circumstances, location, and time (temporal, spatial, and environmental).

3. Agent: “who”; the actor. Co-agents and counter-agents are also involved.

4. Agency: how it happened and the instruments and methods used.

5. Purpose: why it happened.

Although these five elements are combined in a narrative, usually only one or two are dominant in the story. Scenes and acts are the most commonly used. Agents are sometimes at the core of the story but purpose rarely is. In news stories, for example, we often hear what happened and how it happened, and who it happened to, but the reason why is not so crucial to the telling. This in itself is an interesting note to make on how our society is run.

By placing emphasis upon the scene we can deflect the responsibility of the agent. Scene is frequently used as the scapegoat so that the agent is not at fault. Any story can be twisted to shift the emphasis from one element of the pentad to the next: “The criminal robbed three banks in one night” conveys a different image than “In just one night, three banks were robbed”. When a newspaper wishes to victimize a criminal, they will discuss the criminal’s history and the awful experiences that they have been subject to rather than their criminal acts, thus causing the audience to feel more compassionate.

Burke did not intend for Dramatism to be manipulated for persuasive purposes. Rather, he believed that we should be aware of persuasion so that we can do our best to avoid it. In this way he never meant for the pentad to create communication but was of the opinion that purging ourselves of guilt is a key part of the motivations behind public speaking.

How we use the Dramatistic Pentad and our decision in which element becomes central to our narrative is a good indicator of our perspectives on life, our commitment to factual information, and our ability to take responsibility for our actions. Which element takes center stage in the stories that you hear? In your own stories?

Forms of Rhetoric: The Narrative Paradigm

Communication theorist Walter Fisher created the Narrative Paradigm in direct contrast to the Rational World Paradigm. The Rational World Paradigm, rooted in the sciences, states that humans are essentially rational beings and goes on to explain the reasoning behind this assumption; the Narrative Paradigm presents the alternative humanistic view which takes a step further and states that humans are essentially storytellers. In Fisher’s own words, the Narrative Paradigm refers “to a theory of symbolic actions- words and/or deeds- that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them” (Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument, 273). From this definition, we can understand the Narrative Paradigm to be applied to real-world situations.

The basic premise is that everything we do is and can be laid out as a story. Fisher would argue that we cannot, in fact, do anything without it attaining some kind of narrative structure. The main points involved in the Narrative Paradigm are the following:

1. Humans are essentially storytellers

2. Decisions that humans make are based off of “good reasons” rather than proofs

3. What we do and how we think is swayed by history, biography, culture, and character

4. Our rationality is determined by our sense of narrative probability (the coherency of the narrative) and narrative fidelity (whether the story rings true with what we already know to be true)

5. We are continually choosing the stories that we keep company with, and these stories are constantly changing

As you can see from the above points, narratives are a selective reality. We choose what we want to believe, which is influenced by external factors. Journalism and the media are perhaps one of the best examples of the Narrative Paradigm as a selective reality. Journalists gather information, hopefully from a wide variety of differing perspectives, and present their research to the public so that we may form our own opinions on the matter. However, no matter how hard the journalist tried to remain as an objective voice and to present all of the facts, undoubtedly in the end something will be left out or someone will not have their position heard. Moreover, if what we read in the newspaper reinforces our preexisting notions, we will have our own select viewpoints and we will choose what parts of the story we want to believe (because it “rings true” with what we already know: this is narrative fidelity, as mentioned above) and what parts we wish to ignore.

Using narrative is also highly descriptive. It brings people together. Communicating in the narrative enables us to share our understandings of how the world works and allows us to identify with one another, particular if we are party to similar beliefs. In this way, the Narrative Paradigm demonstrates that our attitudes can be directed by narratives and can move us to sympathy. Fisher recognizes that to some degree we have a desire for drama. Combined with our quickness to pass judgment when we can identify with a story, the Narrative Paradigm is an incredibly effective form of rhetoric as both a communicative technique and a persuasive tool. It helps us to create meaning and connect with others. We can use it to consider moral constructs and increase our knowledge of any situation.

Fisher is of the belief that narrative coherency and narrative fidelity are what make one story better than another. What do you think? What is it about a story that captures you? Share your stories in the comments below!