So I have been a little behind in organizing everything for my 5 classes and 1 lab so I'm finally all caught up and now I am ready to stay on schedule with my blog posts!
The reading for the first week of class was the article, "The Rhetorical Stance" by Wayne C. Booth. It was great how this article could serve as a framework for understanding the articles for week 2 of class--especially the Eubanks and Schaeffer article, "A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing". The group discussion in class about all of the articles really helped me make a stronger connection with and think further upon this idea of a "rhetorical triangle". Our group pin-pointed a quote in Booth's article that really outlines 3 angles: "the available arguments about the subject itself", "the interests and peculiarities of the audience" and "the voice, the implied character, of the speaker" (Booth, 141). Discussion on arguments, voice, and audience could be endless but something that really captured my opinion was the topic of the argument. After all, I believe the argument should have a little more emphasis in the triangle then the voice and audience...perhaps maybe a right triangle is needed instead of an equilateral one?
Argument is so powerful because no only is it so dimensional, but it is also so influential. I mean think about our government... our every-day behaviors and actions reflect the winning side of argument that becomes the law which we thus abide. Another thing I love about the idea of arguments is the support for them. Certain arguments can use concrete evidence as back up whereas simultaneously there are arguments which exists that have no possible means of back up and will therefore, continue on and on. Religion, morality, society, ect. are all prime examples of a never-ending arguments where as subject such as symbolic reasoning, science, and mathematical arguments gain support with research and exterior information pertaining to the argument. What is incredible is the word "argument" is used in both situations and contexts.
How much do the audience and voice correlate with the argument? They are really all co-dependent because obviously if there is no audience or voice, there is no argument.
It is really interesting to think of the "3 angles" of the triangle, with a focus on "angle." I had always thought of them as three points, and I think the metaphor of the angle is a better one. I think the idea of the triangle is that all three angles have relationships with the other angles, because each one shares a line with another! IT is interesting to think that you can't change one without affecting the other two. that is the power of that metaphor, in my mind.
ReplyDelete