The significance of attaining a diploma in a specialized field of study is embodied through a common formality across universities at the end of each school year. A graduation, or commencement, is a ceremony where institutions attempt to express the symbolic meaning to students through a notable guest speaker. A pattern of characteristics inside commencement speeches offer future advice, review of educational experiences, and reflection of memories. This type of event is reoccurring and takes on a similar style, substance and purpose, therefore, it is considered a genre (cite). Communication scholar, Lloyd Bitzer, would argue that this genre of speech is supported by his theory of the rhetorical situation, in which he claims that a situation
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His perception differs on the basis that rhetoric is the action that constructs a situation and where meaning originates. Vatz emphasizes this contrast to Bitzer further by acknowledging the rhetor’s power to choose what to highlight in discourse, as a result, meaning is produced and introduces an exigence that is either unclear or awaiting audience interpretation (cite). Both perspectives deflect one another, and so, debate continues as to what constitutes a fitting response. However, after analyzing a commencement speech authored by first lady Barbara Bush to Wellesley College, I can conclude that it is a fitting response according to Vatz’s view of the rhetorical situation because Bush’s rhetoric assembles a situation through choosing to underline a specific connection the …show more content…
After Barbara Bush completed her opening statements she immediately recognized the Wellesley experience as superior, “Wellesley, you see, is not just a place but an idea—an experiment in excellence in which diversity is not just tolerated, but it is embraced” (Bush). Her recognition of the school’s mindset reaffirms to the graduates a key lesson about acceptance in which they can relate to and begins to ease tension for those believing she is unfit to speak. Her choice of words not only provide meaning to the situation, but assemble it because it unravels what she perceives as necessary for the audience to understand. Following this, Bush presents a story discussing a girl who must choose between three fairy-tales characters, however, claims that she is a mermaid and will not give up her own identity to be something else (Bush). The use of the girl and her ambition connects to the audience because Wellesley is a school which prides itself upon empowerment. And so, this myth serves as a reference for her to follow throughout her
His perception differs on the basis that rhetoric is the action that constructs a situation and where meaning originates. Vatz emphasizes this contrast to Bitzer further by acknowledging the rhetor’s power to choose what to highlight in discourse, as a result, meaning is produced and introduces an exigence that is either unclear or awaiting audience interpretation (cite). Both perspectives deflect one another, and so, debate continues as to what constitutes a fitting response. However, after analyzing a commencement speech authored by first lady Barbara Bush to Wellesley College, I can conclude that it is a fitting response according to Vatz’s view of the rhetorical situation because Bush’s rhetoric assembles a situation through choosing to underline a specific connection the …show more content…
After Barbara Bush completed her opening statements she immediately recognized the Wellesley experience as superior, “Wellesley, you see, is not just a place but an idea—an experiment in excellence in which diversity is not just tolerated, but it is embraced” (Bush). Her recognition of the school’s mindset reaffirms to the graduates a key lesson about acceptance in which they can relate to and begins to ease tension for those believing she is unfit to speak. Her choice of words not only provide meaning to the situation, but assemble it because it unravels what she perceives as necessary for the audience to understand. Following this, Bush presents a story discussing a girl who must choose between three fairy-tales characters, however, claims that she is a mermaid and will not give up her own identity to be something else (Bush). The use of the girl and her ambition connects to the audience because Wellesley is a school which prides itself upon empowerment. And so, this myth serves as a reference for her to follow throughout her