Edbauer, “From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies”

The author of the article is Jenny Edbauer. The primary audience for this text is for academic scholars who want to gain a greater knowledge of what rhetoric is. This text defines rhetoric by saying that “rhetorical situations operate within a network of lived practical consciousness or structures of feeling. Placing the rhetorical ‘elements’ within this wider context destabilizes the discrete borders of a rhetorical situation.” I think that the main message of this text is that rhetoric can being seen in the same reading differently by everyone who reads it. In other words, one person can interpret the meaning of one sentence differently then some other person who reads the exact same sentence. For example, many families having sayings that have been past downs from generation to generation. For the family that knows what the backstory of that saying is, it could have a very special melanin to them. For any other person that hears the saying, they might just see it as witty or funny and understand the story behind it. The same thing can also be said about nicknames. To bring up an example from the text, they talk about the example of questioning students about their city. When they as asked what the “good” and “bad” places are, the students all had similar answers. Even if these sites do not look bad for the outside, the students might know things that have happened there that make it dangerous. The students are not making their decision on whether these places are good or bad because of their location. They are making the decision because the place makes them feel a certain way. This text is trying to show us that rhetoric has a deeper meaning then many people think. Many sentences or stories have deeper meaning to people who were involved or can relate to them because of things that have happened in their lives.