The Rhetorical Situation

Why does a speech happen when it does? Why is this the moment for this argument, directed at this audience? What makes a response to a situation fitting or unfitting, apt or inappropriate? These questions; the questions of rhetorical context; are addressed by the concept of the rhetorical situation, introduced in Lloyd Bitzer's landmark 1968 essay and subsequently refined by decades of scholarship.

Understanding the rhetorical situation is the prerequisite for all effective communication. No argument, however logically sound, and no expression, however stylistically brilliant, can succeed if it is addressed to the wrong audience, in response to the wrong problem, at the wrong moment.

The Three Components

Bitzer's Situational Theory

Bitzer's most provocative claim was that rhetorical discourse is called into being by its situation, not created by the will of the speaker. A situation "invites" discourse; it presents an exigence that requires a fitting response; and the skilled rhetor recognizes and responds to this invitation appropriately. Rhetoric that does not fit its situation; however technically proficient; fails.

This view has been criticized, most influentially by Richard Vatz, who argued that Bitzer understated the rhetor's creative role in constituting the situation. Situations do not simply present themselves as obvious to all observers; rhetors select and frame situations through their discursive choices. The "crisis" of 9/11 was not a self-evident rhetorical situation demanding a specific response; it was constituted through specific framing choices that made some responses seem natural and foreclosed others.

The Bitzer-Vatz debate is genuinely productive: the truth lies in acknowledging both that situations constrain available responses and that rhetors actively shape how situations are understood. The skilled communicator does both; reads the situation accurately and frames it effectively.

Fitting Response and Decorum

Bitzer's concept of the "fitting response" connects to the classical principle of decorum; the appropriateness of communication to its situation. A eulogist who tells jokes, an activist who whispers, a negotiator who grandstands; all have violated the principle of fitting response. The rhetorical situation establishes expectations and norms that constitute the criteria for appropriate communication; meeting those criteria is not a constraint on rhetorical creativity but its precondition.

Applying the Framework

Before any significant communication, map the rhetorical situation explicitly:

• What is the exigence? What urgent problem am I responding to, and is rhetoric the appropriate means of addressing it?
• Who is the rhetorical audience? Who has the capacity to act on the exigence; and are those the people I'm addressing?
• What are the constraints? What factors limit my available choices; and which constraints can I work within creatively, rather than being limited by?