The context of written discourse: The rhetorical situation

3. Speaker-writer: What are your roles, identities, voices, and attitudes?

Speaker-writers are involved in the rhetorical situation as those, real or imagined, who are “responsible for the discourse and its authorial voice” (Grant-Davie 1997: 269).

Though Bitzer left the speaker (rhetor) out in his definition of the rhetorical situation, the speaker-writer is just as much a constituent of the rhetorical situation as the audience, Grant-Davies argues. The role(s) of the speaker-writer “are partly predetermined but usually open to definition or redefinition” so that speaker-writers “need to consider who they are in a particular situation and be aware that their identity may vary from situation to situation” (Grant-Davie, 1997: 269). A Speaker-writer may be the originator of the content of the discourse, or just a designee chosen to deliver it, or neither, yet held accountable for the validity of the content (269). Authorial identity may shift, even, from whom the speaker-writer considers himself to be, to whom the hearer/readers infer the author’s identity or ethos to be. So, determining whom the speaker-writer is may not be simple, as exigence and audience exert influence on the roles, the identities, and the audience’s perception of the speaker-writer’s ethos. Interestingly, “new rhetorical situations change us and can lead us to add new roles to our repertoire,” which calls for “receptivity—the ability to adapt to new situations and not rigidly play the same role in every one” (1997: 270).

a. Trying on different voices in writing

The concept of voice in writing is widely used, discussed, and debated. Yet, according to Peter Elbow, there is no “critical consensus about voice” and the concept “leads us into theoretical brambles” (2000: 227). Elbow (2000) discusses the different ways in which voice has been characterized by different literary and composition theorists, for which space in this paper is not committed, highlighting the potential difficulty the concept could present for its analysis. Nevertheless, Elbow holds that “there is little reason to question voice as a solid critical term” because it “points to important The concept of voice in writing is widely used, discussed, and debated. Yet, according to Peter Elbow, there is no “critical consensus about voice” and the concept “leads us into theoretical brambles” (2000: 227). Elbow (2000) discusses the different ways in which voice has been characterized by different literary and composition theorists, for which space in this paper is not committed, highlighting the potential difficulty the concept could present for its analysis. Nevertheless, Elbow holds that “there is little reason to question voice as a solid critical term” because it “points to important

1) Audible voice Are you able to hear this section? How much of it can you hear? If you are stuck, can you read the section out loud and hear the problem? Look away from the paper and speak the idea out loud. How would you say it?

2) Dramatic voice What kind of voice(s) do you imagine are speaking in this essay? - a timid voice, an angry voice, an arrogant voice, a bureaucratic voice, a professorial voice, multiple voices

What sort of speaker or character are you speaking as here?

3) Authoritative voice Could you rephrase this part to sound more assertive? Speak your mind more in this section. Are you afraid of offending someone? How would you say this if you were (some other speaker) the president?

4) Resonant voice How much of yourself did you get behind these words? Where is the real you in this section? Does it fit you? Could you rephrase this (part) so sound more like yourself? Could you be more sincere in this section?

Though each of these views of ‘voice’ is useful, I will focus on Elbow’s resonant voice to frame my understanding of voice presented here, a concept of voice that depends upon the analogy of one getting more of oneself behind his or her words; more than being authentic, but more so “sounding again” (2000: 208). The concept of voice, therefore,

“points to the relationship between discourse and the unconscious” and “comes from getting more of ourselves behind the words,” getting “more of our unconscious into our discourse” (2000: 206, 207). Voices are tightly bound up with selves and identities, which tend to “evolve, change, take on new voices, and assimilate them (2000: 208). In a typically expressionistic way, Elbow holds that writing provides a crucial setting for “trying out parts of the self or unconscious that have been hidden or neglected or undeveloped—to experiment and try out ‘new subject positions’” (2000: 208).

Student writers need to explore and appropriate different voices that approximate the identities that fit within the rhetorical situation. The process, of approximating and re- approximating one’s own multiple, shifting, and fluid voices in writing is shaped by the also-dynamic process of audience fictionalization. It is this intentional, meta-awareness of one’s voice and audience that characterizes mature and skillful writers—the ability to deploy different voices to meet different communicative ends.

Bartholomae (1985) reflected that whenever a “student sits down to write, he has to invent the university for the occasion” by trying on different voices and interpretive frameworks. “The student has to appropriate a specialized discourse,” Bartholomae says, “and he has to do this as though he were easily and comfortably one with his audience” (624).