Rhetorical theory and practice

Rhetorical Theory & Practice

Analysis of "The Rhetorical Stance" by Wayne C. Booth

Wayne Booth's article entitled, "The Rhetorical Stance" provides a discussion and analysis of the role that rhetoric plays in allowing writers, students, academicians -- everybody -- to create a "polemic, unpretentious, stimulating, organized, convincing" compositions and arguments (25).

In the essay, Booth makes his own argument and illustrates this through an enumeration of three examples of rhetorical stances that are commonly utilized by students and academicians. The point of Booth's essay is to determine these rhetorical stances as ineffective means to make an argument through writing; it is only by adopting the "right" rhetorical stance that one can effectively argue, and at the same time persuade, through writing. And the author answers this dilemma by introducing the concept of the "rhetorical balance" -- that is, a balance of stimulating and convincing writing.

This essay discusses the nature of each rhetorical stance that Booth argues to be inefficient in composing a convincing and interesting write-up. Furthermore, this essay argues how Booth successfully formulates and eventually proposes the concept of rhetorical balance in his essay by introducing the pros and cons concerning teach rhetorical stances enumerated. This allows readers to distinguish each rhetorical stance and be able to identify how each stance compares with Booth's proposed rhetorical balance.

The first rhetorical stance is identified as the pedant's stance. Booth identifies this rhetorical stance as an appeal that a writer makes when s/he places too much emphasis on the information and arguments made about the subject, sacrificing, in the process, the emphasis put in establishing "the personal relationship of speaker and audience" (27). In his discussion of the this kind of rhetorical stance, Booth explains how, as a teacher, he instructed his students to write expositions without telling them "what their expositions were for" (28). Thus, what happens is that the student goes through the process of explicating on the subject matter, but never making any connection with the reader -- that is, the reader does not feel that the information s/he is reading is written for a particular audience in mind.

Using this rhetorical stance allows the writer to accomplish his/her goal of accomplishing an exposition; however, the exposition is neither interesting nor convincing, making the exposition just a piece of composition made up of arguments that argues with no definite audience in mind. Thus, the exposition ceases to function as a vehicle for argumentation.

The second rhetorical stance is the advertiser's stance, which is the opposite of the pedantic stance. In the advertiser's stance, the writer gives too much focus in establishing rapport with the audience without really elucidating the subject matter at hand. In this stance, style is given emphasis than substance.

What makes this stance an ineffective tool for rhetoric, according to Booth, is that preoccupation with the way the exposition is going to be interpreted and the audience's reaction to the write-up can sacrifice the content and arguments that the writer makes. This is perhaps the most crucial rhetorical stance, since readers' interest are heightened through the text, but they later realize that despite the connection the writer had established with the reader, there is really no subject matter to connect them, to begin with. That is, the audience becomes aware that the writer has not made convincing arguments nor informative facts about the topic or subject matter. This is perhaps more detrimental to exposition writing than the pedant's stance, since the audience knows that the writer is not knowledgeable about the topic s/he is discussing, thereby resulting to the loss of the writer's credibility.

Booth provides an insightful discussion on the faults of writers who subsist to the advertiser's stance, stating, " ... rhetoric is the art of persuading, not the art of seeming to persuade by giving everything away at the start" (32). The advertiser's stance lacks the mystery of argumentation: by giving the audience the whole idea of the exposition, loss of interest may result. This leads the audience to not reading the composition at all or in its entirety, since they already know what to expect, despite the impressive manner by which the exposition has been delivered.

The last rhetorical stance that Booth enumerates is the entertainer's stance, which he defines as "the willingness to sacrifice substance to personality and charm" (32). This is similar to the advertiser's stance; only, there is emphasis on the fact that the writer becomes the text itself -- that is, the exposition is able to persuade because of the writer's personality. This kind of rhetorical stance may be likened to a well-known and well-established writer who has just published a book that has been criticized to be the author's "most mediocre." Despite the seemingly poor ratings and reviews given to the book, it remains to be acclaimed because of the writer's credibility and personality. This example illustrates the strong ties and influence that the writer can have over his/her created text. Thus, the writer's ethos plays a vital role in persuading the reader, rather than the style or substance used in the exposition.

All of the "perversions," according to Booth, hinder the establishment of a rhetorical balance -- that is, there is a triangulation or perfect combination of style, substance, and writer's credibility in the text. He describes the rhetorical balance as a "balance among speaker, audience, and argument," essential elements of writing that the individual, as both writer and reader, must always keep in mind (33).