COMMRC 0310 Final Exam Questions and Answers

COMMRC 0310 Final Exam Questions and Answers What marks goal-directed discourse? - Answer-careful selection of symbols, construction of appeals and engagement of listeners and readers as feeling and valuing beings as well as thinking beings. Are the appeals of rhetoric adapted, universal, or neutral appeals? - Answer-Adapted What are Gregg's six basic patterns of human perception and what do they mean? - Answer-1. The principle of edging or formulating boundaries. The brain perceives data in terms of wholes. 2. Rhythm. The brain perceives data in terms of motion. 3. Association. The brain perceives identities. 4. Classification. The brain perceives groupings. 5. Abstraction. The brain perceives by abstracting data from the ecological flux of its total environment. 6. Hierarchy. The brain seeks closure on structures of perception. "All structures invite a particular expectation of patterned development and completion." Why is this important to rhetoric? - Answer-Because all our choices of argument, organization, language, action, occasion, setting, medium, and the like are actually choices of structure. What do we imply when we say that "rhetoric is an answer to the questions posed by the situation in which it arises"? - Answer-Rhetorical responses are not merely answers, but strategic answers and stylized answers. What are syllogistic progression, qualitative progression, repetitive form, conventional form, and minor or incidental form, as defined by Kenneth Burke, in the sense that forms work by guiding audience expectations and/or desires? - Answer-syllogistic progression - is the form of an argument that is perfectly conducted, with each premise leading to the next qualitative progression - is a form in which the presence of one quality prepares us for another repetitive form - occurs when we consistently maintain a principle by presenting it in different ways conventional form - relies on audience recognition of a familiar form minor forms - are devices of expression, each of which can be regarded as a formal event in and of itself What are associational clusters? - Answer-terms and ideas that congregate together What are Hariman's four political rhetorical styles? - Answer-realist, republican, courtly, bureaucratic. What are rhetorical proofs and what are the three principal proofs? - Answer-Rhetorical proofs are the ways of making speech persuasive. The principal proofs are logos, ethos, and pathos. Name and define three commonly accepted patterns of reason on which enthymemes rely - Answer-signs - involve one thing indicating another cause and effect - occur in arguments about the consequences of things or actions analogies - compare seemingly different things What is the difference between real and hypothetical examples? - Answer-real examples - are things from your own experience or research that illustrate or support the claim you are making hypothetical examples - are made-up examples Name and explain four ways that speakers might create ethos. - Answer-action - speakers might call explicitly on the history of their actions deeds - speakers might point out deeds that exemplify their character understanding - speakers can show they understand their audience's pov by adapting carefully to them, identifying similarities in their experiences and beliefs expertise - speakers often claim some kind of expertise, which they can justify by citing their education How is pathos most effectively used? - Answer-paired with other proofs What are topoi? - Answer-The general forms that arguments take, regardless of their actual content. Name and explain four types of general topoi. - Answer-more and less likely - if the more likely thing does not happen, the less likely thing will also not happen consistency of motives - if a person has a reason to do something, he or she probably will do it hypocrisy - if standards apply to one person, they should apply to another analogy - if things are alike in an obvious way, they will also be alike in other ways Name and define Aristotle's five subjects to which special topoi apply. - Answer-finances - the public funding of the government war and peace - the government and issues about diplomacy national defense - issues about the military imports and exports - the government's trade policy the framing of law - the workings of elected representatives What is the rhetorical meaning of the word clash? - Answer-when two arguments meet head-on over an issue What is a stalemate? - Answer-point where each party just contradicts the other What is the difference between presumption and burden of proof? - Answer- presumption - a tie-breaking principle, a prior decision about which side should be given the benefit of the doubt in the case of a tie burden of proof - your accusers have to prove you are guilty, but you don't have to prove you are innocent Know and define the three legal argument stock issues. - Answer-fact - what happened? definition - what was it? value - what should be done? Know and define the five policy argument stock issues. - Answer-significance - is the problem significant? inherence - is the problem inherent in the status quo? plan - the affirmative has to outline a consistent plan and show how it would implement that plan solvency - the affirmative has to show that the plan actually solves the problem disadvantages - the affirmative must argue that the plan doesn't create a problem worse than the one it supposed to solve Recognize and define the eight fallacies described in the book. - Answer-as personam ("to the person") - instead of focusing on the argument, the speaker makes judgements or personal attacks about the person(s) advancing the opposite side of the argument ad populum ("to the people") - this error is also know as the band-wagon effect, whereby the speaker argues that "if it's popular and lots of people believe it, it must be true." appeal to authority - arguments often depend on the knowledge of experts, but there are appropriate and inappropriate experts depending on the argument appeal to ignorance - the burden of proof lies with the originators of an argument guilt by association - this mistake occurs when an arguer jumps to the conclusion based on evidence that is irrelevant to the point at issue post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this") - this fallacy involces faulty cause-and-effect reasoning red herring - when a speaker deliberatively takes the argument off point slippery slope - this fallacy presents a chain of cause and effect whereby the first cause establishes an irreversible trend, sometimes called the domino effect What are the five essential ingredients of Chomsky's Propaganda Model? - Answer-1. the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms 2. advertising as the primary income source of the mass media 3. the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power 4. "flak" as a means of disciplining the media 5. anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism