The Rhetorical Situation: Study Guide (English Language 1.1)

What is a rhetorical situation?

Every text you have ever read was written by someone, for someone, because of something. Nobody writes in a vacuum. A rhetorical situation is the full set of circumstances that surround a piece of writing and shape the choices the writer makes. If you can describe the situation, you can usually explain why the text sounds, is organised and argues the way it does. That is why the first reading skill in this course is to identify and describe the components of the rhetorical situation.

There are six components. They are easier to remember as six questions:

Component	The question it answers	Plain-English definition
Exigence	Why now?	The event, problem or need that prompts the writer to write.
Writer	Who is speaking?	The person or group creating the text, with their experience, role and credibility.
Audience	Who is listening?	The readers or listeners the writer is addressing, with their shared and individual beliefs, values, needs and backgrounds.
Purpose	What does the writer want to achieve?	What the writer hopes the text will accomplish: to persuade, inform, honour, warn, move to action. A text can have more than one purpose.
Context	Where and when?	The time, place and occasion in which the text is written and received.
Message	What is being said?	The main idea or position the text actually communicates.

The components are not separate boxes. They press on each other. A change in audience changes the purpose that is realistic. A change in context changes what counts as a persuasive message. When you describe a situation, you are describing a web, not a list.

Why the situation matters more than the topic

Beginners often describe a text by its topic (“this is about libraries”). Topic is only part of the message. Two writers can write about the same topic in very different situations. A council report on library funding and a retired reader’s letter to the local paper both concern libraries, but their writer, audience, purpose and context differ, so the diction, evidence and structure differ too. The report will lean on figures and neutral phrasing; the letter will lean on personal experience and direct appeal.

Reading with the situation in mind turns “what does this say?” into the more useful question: “why is it said this way, to these people, at this moment?” That question is the doorway to everything else in the course: appeals, evidence, structure and style are all rhetorical choices, and a choice can only be judged against the situation it was made for.

Describing each component precisely

Vague labels earn little. Compare:

Component	Vague	Precise
Audience	“People.”	“Citizens gathered at a cemetery dedication, and the wider public who would read the speech in newspapers.”
Context	“A long time ago.”	“November 1863, in the middle of a civil war, on a battlefield where thousands had died four months earlier.”
Purpose	“To talk about the war.”	“To give the dead and the war a meaning the living can commit to.”
Exigence	“The war.”	“The formal dedication of a national cemetery.”

Precision means naming who, what and when, and it means using specific details from the text or its setting. If you could paste your description onto a different text and it would still be true, it is too vague.

Exigence is not purpose

Students often swap these two. The exigence is what prompts the writing; it looks backward or around you at a trigger. The purpose is what the writer wants the text to do; it looks forward to an effect. A writer who writes to a council because it voted to cut library hours has the vote as exigence and “persuade the council to reverse it” as purpose. The next topic, 1.2, takes this distinction further.

A famous example: Lincoln at Gettysburg (1863)

Abraham Lincoln’s address at the dedication of the soldiers’ cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on 19 November 1863 is public-domain, short and rich in situation, so it makes a good test case.

• Exigence: the formal dedication of a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle fought at Gettysburg on 1 to 3 July 1863.
• Writer: the President of the United States, speaking as the commander-in-chief of a nation at war, but briefly and as one of several speakers.
• Audience: the crowd at the ceremony, many of them bereaved, and, through newspapers, the whole Union public, including people doubtful about the war.
• Purpose: to honour the dead, and also to redefine what the war was for, so that the living would take up the “unfinished work”.
• Context: the autumn of 1863, with the war still undecided, on the battlefield itself.
• Message: the nation was founded on equality, the war tests whether such a nation can endure, and the proper memorial to the dead is to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Notice how the situation explains the style. The speech is very short and speaks of the dead with restraint, which suits a solemn occasion. The brevity is itself a rhetorical choice, because Lincoln knew a long argument would be out of place at a funeral-like event. Lincoln also says, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” That sentence is a direct acknowledgement of the occasion: it shows the writer thinking about context and audience while he writes.

Worked example 1: the situation behind a speech

Task. Susan B. Anthony, in 1873, addressed audiences with the words: “Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote.” Describe the exigence, writer, audience and one aspect of context, and explain how the opening choice responds to them.

Step 1: Exigence. She had been indicted after voting in the 1872 election in Rochester, New York. The legal charge, and the coming trial, is what prompts the speech.

Step 2: Writer. A leading campaigner for women’s suffrage who is also the defendant. That double role gives her both authority on the issue and a personal stake.

Step 3: Audience. Local citizens, the people who would later form a jury pool, and the newspaper readership beyond them.

Step 4: Context. 1873, before her trial. Women could not lawfully vote in federal elections, and there was an active debate about whether the Fourteenth Amendment protected women as “citizens”.

Step 5: Link choice to situation. She opens with “Friends and fellow citizens”. “Fellow citizens” assumes the very point in dispute, that she and the women present are citizens in the full sense. She then states the charge in the most neutral legal language (“the alleged crime”), which sets up an argument that it is the law, not her, that is on trial.

Check. Each component is tied to a detail of the text or its date, and the final step explains an effect rather than naming a device. The answer would not fit any other speech.

Worked example 2: an unseen letter (written by Marlbridge)

Read this short letter, written by Marlbridge for practice.

To the editor of the Larkfield Courier: Last Tuesday the town council voted to cut the library’s opening hours from 58 a week to 40. I am a retired bus driver, and for six years the reading room has been where I spend the cold hours between taking my grandchildren to school and collecting them. Councillors, you will say the savings are needed. But a library is not a luxury added to a town; it is part of what makes the town a town. Before the council’s next meeting on 14 March, I ask you to reverse the cut.

Task. Identify all six components.

Component	Answer	Evidence in the text
Exigence	The council’s vote to cut opening hours.	“Last Tuesday the town council voted to cut…”
Writer	A retired local resident and daily library user.	“I am a retired bus driver… for six years…”
Audience	Primary: the councillors. Secondary: Courier readers who might add public pressure.	Direct address: “Councillors, you will say…”
Purpose	To persuade the council to reverse the cut, and to enlist readers.	“I ask you to reverse the cut.”
Context	A local newspaper, a budget decision already taken, a deadline of the next meeting.	“Before the council’s next meeting on 14 March.”
Message	A library is part of what makes a town; the hours should be restored.	“It is part of what makes the town a town.”

Check. Notice that the audience has two layers. The writer addresses the councillors directly but publishes in the paper. Spotting a primary and a secondary audience is often what separates a precise answer from a general one. Notice also how the situation explains the choices: the personal detail about being a bus driver builds the writer’s credibility as an ordinary user, and the anticipated objection (“you will say the savings are needed”) shows the writer knows what the council will argue.

How the exam asks about the rhetorical situation

On the multiple-choice section, reading questions ask you to identify what a sentence reveals about the audience, purpose or context, or which description of the situation best fits a passage. The writing questions ask you to choose a revision that suits the situation, for example, which sentence best suits an audience of local officials. On the rhetorical analysis essay, you will be given a prompt that states a situation in a few lines. Your analysis should keep returning to it: every choice you explain should be tied to the writer’s purpose for this audience in this context.

Common misconceptions

• “The situation is background, so I can skip it.” The situation is the reason behind every choice. A rhetorical analysis that never mentions it reads like a list of techniques.
• “The audience is whoever reads the text now.” The audience is the one the writer has in view. A modern student is not the audience of an 1863 speech, though she can analyse how it addressed its own.
• “A text has one audience and one purpose.” Many have a primary and a secondary audience, and more than one purpose (to honour and to persuade).
• “Message and purpose are the same.” The message is what the text says; the purpose is what the writer wants it to do. “A library is central to a town” is a message; “get the cut reversed” is a purpose.
• “Context is just the date.” Context is time, place and occasion: when, where, and the kind of event or publication.
• “The writer is the same as the speaker’s name.” The writer includes the role, credibility and relationship to the audience that the name carries.

Where this leads

Topic 1.2 sharpens the exigence-and-purpose pair, and topic 1.3 looks harder at audience and context. Test yourself with the practice questions and tick off the checklist. Then read on to Exigence and purpose.