Lloyd Bitzer The Rhetorical Situation Summary

In Lloyd F. Bitzer’s article “The Rhetorical Situation”, one major issue that the author discussed is what makes a situation rhetorical. He argued that we have not yet properly identified the theory of a rhetorical situation, and “no major theorist has treated rhetorical situation thoroughly as a distinct subject in rhetorical theory”. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, he addressed the concepts of the rhetorical situation and its development into rhetorical discourse.
This article is written to provide an understanding of the content of a rhetorical situation and to clarify rhetoric-as-essentially-related-to-situation beliefs. According to Bitzer, rhetorical situation does not mean merely understanding the context in which the speech is located, nor does it solely refer to a setting at where the speech is presented. In fact, Bitzer believed that rhetoric is situational, and “rhetorical discourse is called into existence
The presence of rhetorical discourse suggested the presence of a rhetorical situation. In the article, Bitzer stated “Rhetorical situation may be defined as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting…etc”. Which, I assume that he meant rhetorical discourse arose from an instant that communication is developed, and therefore, there must be a situation to bring discourse into existence. Now, rhetorical situation can be described as an interacting environment between the speaker and the audience engaged in. Bitzer said, rhetorical situation consisted of three components—exigence, audience and constraints. Exigence is “an imperfection marked by urgency”, which means that exigence is the reason