Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from within the Thematic of 'Différance'

Abstract

Critiques bring to the analysis of rhetorical events various assumptions about the nature of symbolic action. Yet almost invariably they share common presuppositions about the constituent elements of the rhetorical situation and the logic that informs the relations between them. Whether theorists and critics adhere to an old or a new rhetoric, they continue to operate under the assumption that a logic of influence structures the relations between the constituent elements in any particular rhetorical situation. Symbolic action (what has historically been a linguistic text) is almost always understood as an expression that, wittingly or unwittingly, shapes or is shaped by the constituent elements of the situation out of which and for which it is produced. This long-held conception of the rhetorical situation as an exchange of influence defines the text as an object that mediates between subjects (speaker and audience) whose identity is constituted in a terrain different from and external to the particular rhetorical situation. Hence, the rhetorical situation is thought to modify attitudes or induce action on the part of consummate individuals. I believe a rethinking of the rhetorical situation is called for on two interrelated grounds. One, the understanding of the rhetorical

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