The Rhetorical Situation

FLC Writing Program / Rhetorical Knowledge

Bitzer’s Situation[1]

What is the nature of a rhetorical situation? What particular combinations of writer, audience, subject, and communicative purpose gives rise to a text? This chart is based on Lloyd Bitzer's "The Rhetorical Situation" (Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1-14). A rhetorical situation invites creation and presentation of discourse: not just any discourse, but a fitting one, a discourse that produces a change in thought or action of the audience, and thus in the world. If a situation is not capable of being altered, then Bitzer believes that it cannot be rhetorical. Also, if the rhetor can take action alone or with only a tool, the situation is not rhetorical (though Bitzer allows the ideal self as an audience, which is stretching the point). (Bitzer does not use the "itch, scratchers, and glove" metaphor. That's an add-on.)

Discourse (rhetorical utterance)

[1] Sue Smith,