When we decide we want to communicate, whether in public or in private, we should consider what responsibilities we have as communicators (Fassett, Warren, & Naimby, 2018). This could be the responsibility to the audience, the responsibility to the argument we are making, the moral considerations that drive rhetoric, and/or the responsibility to the evidence that supports our public claims (Cloud, 1999; Turner & Ryden, 2000; Wander, 1983, 1984, 2011, 2013; Weaver, 1953/1985). Our credibility is also tied to our responsibility to these aspects of argument, and therefore so is the reception of our argument.
Rhetorical Responsibility
In the 1970s and early 1980s a debate arose in the field of Rhetoric that literally changed the definition of Rhetorical studies. American Rhetorical studies in the twentieth century had focused primarily on the construction of messages—often viewed through a scientific lens. In 1972 Philip Wander and Steven Jenkins published an article on the Vietnam War in the leading Rhetorical journal, The Quarterly Journal of Speech. Speaking from an anti-war perspective, the authors critiqued the government’s war rhetoric and public responses.
In response, prominent Rhetorical scholar Lawrence Rosenfield (1974) wrote a piece in that same journal claiming Jenkins and Wander did their Rhetorical criticism incorrectly and were not psychologically structured to do criticism. His core argument was that Jenkins and Wander cared to much about their subject to be objective: rhetorical critics in Rosenfield's view should not engage in socio-political critique or be personally invested in a topic.
Significantly, Rosenfield's critique undermined his own arguments as he worked to shut out ideological-based criticism while doing precisely that. What he ended up accomplishing was a means of “othering” voices in academic fields. Dominant voices reflecting dominant ideologies in the field often try to remove controversial or oppositional voices and diminish their impact (Cloud, 1999; Turner & Ryden, 2000; Wander, 1983, 1984, 2011, 2013). In the 1970s this was common for women scholars, black scholars, and other alternative voices. This is not unlike how the Church or the Roman Empire once attempted to control the function of Rhetoric. Philip Wander is a white male but with a radical (at the time) ideology who was therefore shut out of Rhetorical studies and viewed as a radical writing about things he had no business discussing. Rosenfield’s response angered Wander, who set about constructing a new response that would define how to do what he called “Ideological Criticism" (Wander, 1983).
In the early 1980s Wander (1983) decided to return to Rhetorical studies, and composed “The Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Criticism” which he was able to publish in a smaller and more open to alternatives journal, The Central States Speech Journal (now called Communication Studies). In this article, Wander argues that rhetorical scholars can’t—and shouldn’t—separate themselves and their work from their own ideologies. He further argues that rhetorical criticism has a responsibility to be responsible—to have a positive impact on culture and society.
That article became the heart of a formal debate published within that journal over a two-year period, with scholars arguing both for and against allowing personal ideology to play a role in how a scholar does criticism. It expanded into a debate over whether scholarship should be responsible to social needs—and function as a type of advocacy. At the end of the debate, Wander (1984) capstoned his argument with a piece discussing what he saw as the “other” in most rhetorical arguments—the “it” or non-existent third persona that is invisible in many political and rhetorical arguments couched in “us v. them” terminology. "Wander argued that rhetorical critics should pay attention to audiences not invoked or constructed by a rhetor as symptomatic of communities and interests excluded in dominant rhetoric" (Cloud, 1999, p. 200). Consider this example:
How are the rhetorics of "human rights" and "income equality" involved in this example? How are these rhetorics being applied to the people involved? Do the public arguments match what the people themselves are asking? Much like the othering Wander himself went through as a rhetorical scholar whose voice was erased by the more known scholars in the 1970s—the “Third Persona” is the person who is not directly discussed but will be impacted by the arguments and ideas contained in a speech, a law, or other rhetorical construct.
In the ensuing years, Wander and others have further developed the argument that Rhetorical criticism and theory should be about something and have an impact in the world (Cloud, 1999; McGee & Martin, 1983; Turner & Ryden, 2000; Wander, 1983, 1984, 2011, 2013). Today, Wander advocates that scholars need to exercise Rhetorical Responsibility. Wander (2011) describes Rhetorical Responsibility as addressing concrete problems that impact real people's lives. Thus, Wander argues that we should all be advocates and seek to improve the world:
Whither ideology? Nowhere and everywhere, and if we cannot now, in the privacy of our own imagination and the collectivity of our action, find a way out of the labyrinth within which we are gathering up future generations to feed the minotaur we have created, then God help us to help our selves, our people, our fellow citizens, and the whole of life on the planet now and in the future. (Wander, 2011, p. 427)
To tackle these problems, there are a few necessary elements that need to be considered. Solid, accurate research and a solidly constructed argument are a major necessity in being rhetorically responsible.
Critical Listening & Feedback
Additionally significant, in order to be rhetorically responsible, you have to take into consideration your listening energy as well as the verbal and nonverbal feedback that occurs between a speaker and their audience. The communication behaviors associated with this concept include acknowledging the speaker and their message, relating to or associating with, and respectfully developing a constructive response to the message developed and presented by the speaker. This best practice approach to audience response in communication is also known as the “holistic” approach to audience response in communication. In addition, this concept of critical listening and feedback, seen as part of rhetorical responsibility, has exponential application across communication contexts (Way & Tracy, 2012).
In our polarized society where people are ideologically and politically siloed into groups with narrow belief patterns, the need for critical listening has become extremely significant. Recent political theory in the areas of dialogic and deliberative democracy and communication has discovered how important critical listening and feedback are in determining and predicting communication outcomes. Furthermore, we can also see the relationship between this communication behavior and the spectrum of attitude. The spectrum of attitudes includes opinion-based reactions from audiences such as a critical response (strong disagreement), incompatible response (not matching audience current position), and Neutral (does not care either way).
Given the importance of critical listening and feedback, there is still very little research that specifically looks at this concept in ideological and political communication context (Eveland et al, 2020). However, recent studies (Eveland et al, 2020; Flores et al, 2018) are looking at demographic variables and how they impact and predict audience responses, which naturally include critical listening and feedback.
Forensic Argumentation
Rhetorical criticism is aimed at critiquing arguments that exist in the public sphere. Rhetorical construction of argument, on the other hand, is aimed at creating arguments for public consumption. Both of these concerns need to be ideologically grounded in concern for the audience and how it will be impacted by public messages. However, the construction of public arguments involves balancing ideological concern with accurate and supportable data and evidence to ground and back the argumentative claims.
As discussed in Module 1, the role of rhetoric in public argument has always been a key concern. Aristotle saw (367-322 B.C.E./1991) three branches of rhetoric:
Deliberativerhetoric: deals with political and legislative arguments. These arguments are proposals policies and legislative action. These are predictive arguments, proposing future outcomes for society and nations.
Forensicrhetoric: deals with judicial and legal arguments. This category includes all issues related to court systems and cases, including arguments focused on evidence and data collection standards.
Epideictic rhetoric: deals with ceremonial and performative oratory. This category includes demonstrations by activists, plays, ceremonies, commemorations, and entertainment.
Deliberative and epideictic rhetoric, for Aristotle and more recent scholars (Goodnight, 1982; Toulmin, 1958) are often pathos-driven, which means that ideological motives behind the rhetoric may overshadow the accuracy of information and argument presented. Forensic rhetoric, on the other hand, needs to be grounded in accurate data and detail and backed by research that illustrates how the argument is consistent with legal precedent and logical claims (Allen & Burrell, 1990). In fact, the forensic sciences developed as means of collecting evidence to support public forensic (legal) arguments (Bell, 2008; Neumann, Kaye, Hackson, Reyna, & Ranadive, 2016).
Forensic arguments use evidence to frame the claims presented to the public. One of the more common models for forensic arguments was created in the first half of the Twentieth Century by Steven Toulmin (1958). His model set out to look at inductive approaches to argument, and focused on data collection and forming claims and arguments from what the data reveals. Toulmin's model was rooted in legal arguments, and therefore is grounded in Aristotelian definitions of forensic argument. However, Toulmin did not intend his model to be restricted to court and legal system discussion.
The Toulmin Model of Arguments
Toulmin’s (1958) model takes us through six elements or stages of research and argument construction: while there are many models of argumentation and responsible research, one of the most solid is based on the work of Steven Toulmin. Toulmin's goal was to suggest a model of argumentation that matched the patterns we already use. Before his model of casual logic, most discussion of logic in philosophy followed the patterns of formal logic—a system of analysis that feels more like algebra than it does like language. On the other hand, Toulmin's model is all about natural language. He recognized that, for the most part, we do all of our thinking with language—the language we already know—and not with even more abstract concepts.
At the core of Toulmin’s (1958) model for Argumentation is the idea that it isn’t enough to use the techniques that help to sell an argument that we learned from Sophistry and the Elocutionists. We need to build a solid argument that is founded upon facts and data. But here's the trick: the connection between our claim and our data might not necessarily be obvious to anyone but us. Because of this, we also have to think through our warrants—the logical bridges between facts and arguments. These "bridges" expose our own assumptions about our thinking. If our assumptions are sound, our claim is strong. If our assumptions are invalid, our claim will fail.
It isn't coincidence that the word we use here also appears in legal situations. When the police have evidence (a set of fingerprints, for example), and try to make a claim about this evidence (that the fellow who matches these prints is guilty), it's the job of a judge to issue a warrant, basically verifying that the evidence supports the argument—in other words, that the argument is warranted. Readers and audience members do the same thing when taking in a text: it's their job to decide whether the speaker's arguments are well-warranted, that is well-supported by his or her arguments. Consider the example argument included below following Toulmin's Argument Model.
The Toulmin model is most interested in attempting to acknowledge our assumptions and, using only the tools of language, get as close to a complex, accurate proof as possible. It also acknowledges that truth is complicated and rarely universal. The model proposes that a good argument is composed of six necessary elements:
Claim: The basic argument being made
Data: Evidence in support of the argument
Warrant: An explanation of how the data supports the claim, and the rationale that connects the data to the claim
Backing: Additional data and support that acts as a justification for the warrant
Rebuttal/Counterclaim Address: The opposition, a claim that disagrees with the claim and warrant
(Rebuttal) Qualifier: The "rebut" to the rebuttal" or evidence that disagrees with the counterclaim
Toulmin’s (1958) model provides what he considered to be practical arguments, or arguments substantial enough to hold up to scrutiny and opposition. This style of argumentation is built around the idea that a claim must be fully justified, so data and evidence need to be collected in support of that claim. Ideally, following the model will result in a favorable verdict or opinion in the audience.
Toulmin's intent was that the model can be applied to multiple types of public argument, not just legal cases (Erduran, Simon, & Osborne, 2004; Toulmin, 1958). Current scholarly discourse promotes the idea that Toulmin's model can appeal to large audiences, because it grounds the argument in inductive reasoning based on evidence. In particular, scientists and other scholars suggest that Toulmin's model, when used to present public discourses that are often overly simplified, such as scientific communication, can help audiences better understand the substance of the claims (Erduran, Simon, & Osborne, 2004; Goodnight, 1982; Walsh, 2016). Others, however, maintain that epidictic and moral arguments in the political arena overshadow evidence-based argumentation (Fisher, 1984; Wander, 1985).
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