Rhetorical analysis

I must admit that rhetorical analysis is my preferred approach to doing my own research and also a research approach I teach all the time in my undergraduate writing courses.

Consistently, my three books (fourth on the way) take up rhetorical analysis and also feminist analysis (esp feminist analysis in my first book and forthcoming book with K.J. Rawson). But I've worked with other methods to address my research questions--interviews, surveys, and even quantitative research (lite version for my work as a Chair/WPA).

More recently, I've been trying to think through how transnationalism affects how we do work in rhetoric in our field --what parameters and boundaries we imagine for our work in rhetoric (this resulted in the special issue co-edited with Wendy Hesford on transnational feminist rhetoric for _College English_). But rhetorical analysis remains a core feature of my work. So it's a comfortable fit to read the four articles this week. It's also useful to see how varied rhetorical analysis can be--

Some questions and quotes stood out this week--quotes that capture the capaciousness and all-inclusive nature of rhetoric and rhetorical analysis:

What is rhetorical analysis?
"By extension, rhetorical analysis or rhetorical criticism can be understood as an effort to understand how people within specific social situations attempt to influence others through language" (238). Selzer distinguishes between textual analysis (analysis of a symbolic act on its own terms) and contextual analysis, which seemed to be tied to intertextuality as Bazerman would discuss it (283).

What is rhetoric?
"As its definitions suggestions [Foss defining rhetoric as communication], the scope of rhetoric is broad. Rhetoric is not only written and spoken discourse; indeed, speaking and writing make up only a small part of our rhetorical environment. Symbols assume a variety of forms; any message, regardless of the form it takes on the channel of communication it uses is rhetoric and is appropriate to study in rhetorical criticism. Rhetoric includes then, non-discursive or nonverbal symbols as well as discursive or verbal ones. Speeches, essays, conversations, poetry, novels, stories, television programs, films, art, architecture, plays, music, dance, advertisements, furniture, public demonstrations, and dress are all forms of rhetoric" (Foss 4).

How does one do a rhetorical analysis?
"Once the basic feature of a rhetorical situation are identified or reconstructed, a rhetorical analysis can proceed in many different ways. It can follow the arrangement of the analyzed text closely, characterizing the multiple effects sequentially encountered by the audience. or it can be organized according to any of the systems of division offered in rhetoric such as genre features (good for mixed modes), by appeal, by lines of argument, by small-scale divides such as figures of speech" (Fahnestock and Secor 185).

Is there a better and worse way?
"Defining rhetorical criticism is akin to defining rhetoric: everyone seems to have a slightly different version, and that difference is both necessary and significant" (DeWinter 389).

What counts as worthy to analyze?
"What we choose to rhetorically critique is as important as how we choose to do it" (DeWinter 397). This is my favorite quotation.

Questions I have thus far:

--What definition(s) of rhetoric and theories of rhetoric fuel our understandings and applications of rhetorical analysis?
--What are our key terms for rhetorical analysis? Where do they emerge from? What traditions? What do we attach ourselves to by using specific terms and not others? For instance, how do our analyses of rhetorical texts in our own local contexts account for national, global, transnational contexts?
--Amber's question on Justin's blog is a good one--how do we read people instead of texts? How is rhetorical analysis suited for different contexts besides textual analyses? How do we read events, actions, and communities rhetorically?
--What is the role of "vernacular" rhetoric, the rhetoric of the everyday, and of talk, signs, symbols, things that aren't text in the traditional sense?
--How do digital texts challenge us to think about rhetoric differently (hearkening back to Wysocki)?
I'll have more questions, but these are significant ones for now.