Bitzer, Lloyd, "Functional Communication:
A Situational Perspective," in E. E. White, ed., Rhetoric in Transition
(University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1981),21-38.
"This essay considers rhetoric as a functional, or pragmatic, communication
and thus a critical mode of functional interaction in which the chief interacting
grounds are persons on the one hand and the environment on the other."
I. Functional interaction
a. Humans must, and always, align the physical world with their needs.
b. Humans align the mental environment with their needs.
c. The world in which we live is a mixture of mental and physical environments.
d. Whenever there is an interacting agent, there is also a symbolic and
rhetorical aspect.
d. There is then, always an exigence and a remedy as normal pragmatic constituents
of the total environment and rhetorical interaction sets about aligning
these.
II. Exigence, audience, constraints
and the rhetorical situation.
a. Rhetor must discover and make use of proper constraints in the message
to keep his response fitting.
b. The situation is real in that there are both physical and mental environments,
both of which are observable.
c. The situation is not fixed/unchanging, as both physical and mental life
can flux.
"The situational perspective does not deny the influence of the individual's
creativity in the apprehension of situations and in the efforts to modify
them through creation and presentation of messages; nor does it ignore the
degree to which thought constitutes the environment. Instead the situational
perspective considers thoughts as well as things to be parts of historic
reality, and it calls attention to the close relation of pragmatic communication
to actual historical conditions."
III. Exigencies
a. because of life's many imperfections, the environment and persons invite
change.
b. when perceived, the exigence invites motive.
c. some exigencies do not yield to change; others invite other than symbolic
action.
d. exigencies are rhetorical when they invite symbolic mediation in order
to influence audiences.
e. a rhetorical exigence consists of a factual condition (existence is,
or is thought to be, independent of one's personal subjectivity)plus a relation
to some felt interest.
f. Speakers and audiences can disagree on the factual conditions and/or
on the interest about them.
g. The existance of the mental portions, including the interests, are symbolically
mediated. The existance of the factual portion is given, but must be symbolically
shared for rhetorical situations to come into being.
IV. Fitting responses
a. the response is corrective.
b. the response is well received.
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