Rhetoric

Understanding Rhetoric

Rhetoric seems difficult but we all do it everyday of our live, even if we know it or not. I have come to understand it as the tone of how you are speaking or like my father use to say “its not what you say but how you say it.” I believe this to be true. We go out into our daily live and we adjust how we speak to other different groups of people. We are not usually aware that we are using rhetoric, something in our subconscious tell us that we should alter and tailor our speech to our audience. For example, while speaking to your grandmother you would not walk up to her with your hood up and your pants sagging saying, “Yo granny? Whats the good word old timer?”  Well, most people wouldn’t, most people speak to their grandmother with respect and tailor their speech so granny can follow along and she doesn't think you are on drugs. People speak to their friends a whole lot different then they do to a figure of authority. When I speak to people who don't know anything about film making, I don't use the slang or trade terms to get my point a crossed. I use common words like great and fun, instead of saying camera angle, shutter speed, depth of field, exposure and techno crane. Rhetoric is all about know and communicating to your audience. How does this come full circle back to writing? Well it goes the same for writing, story telling, photography and graphic design. You first understand your audience, so if you're writing an essay to your science professor, you could get away with using big scientific words or slang and your audience would still understand. I believe that understanding Rhetoric is single handedly the best tool for networking and communicating with others and we should all get much more familiar with it.