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Date:         Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:31:26 -0700
From:         Richard B Freeman <jeanbob@SELWAY.UMT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Definitions of rhetoric

Rick Freeman
P.O. Box 2421
Missoula, MT   59806
jeanbob@selway.umt.edu

Hello Harold,

Thanks for responding to my message re H. Garfield.  I'll try to keep my
reply brief.

> I'm kind of curious about how Garfinkel makes sense out of new things that
> happen in a discourse community?  Also, does he do anything with the
> possibility of "error" in interpretation by receivers?  Certainly there
> are certain kinds of "messages" which are unlikely to be interpreted in an
> odd way ("Take out the trash") but others ("We need all Americans to protect
> the peace") might have far wider range of responses.  Does Garfinkel do
> anything with this possibility?

Judging from H.G.'s _Studies in Ethnomethodology_, I think H.G. would
argue that the everyday person would try to interpret a "new" message in
terms of his or her everyday knowledge...assuming a "competent" fellow
participant.  That is, he or she would interpret meaning by comparing the
message to previous messages...a sort of exercise in identifying
redundancy (for example, in G. Bateson's sense of the word).  Also, the
everyday person would reserve interpretation...in the sense that he or she
would index the message against future messages.  In this way, I suppose,
closure isn't really possible, at least in any certain sense.  (But, even
the skeptic uses the door.)

(By the way, G.H. Mead's philosophy of the present...his analysis of
emergence comes to mind in this context.  But, this message is getting long.)

RE how H.G. would address error...hmmm.  It's been awhile, but I think
that in the studies he did in which medical students analyzed statements
made...in a clinical environment (psychiatry)...statements, I think, made
by people pretending they were applicants to med school...when the
imposters displayed attitudes (through an interview process) that the
subjects did not consider consistent with a competent (applicant)
attitude...and then found later that the applicants (fictitiously) had
been accepted...the subjects reviewed their earlier conclusions and tried
to fit them into their sense of what made sense.  [Does this make sense?]
In some cases, the subjects...if I remember correctly...were able to
adjust their conclusions...and in some cases, adjustment was more
difficult.  But, without rereading _Studies_ (a copy of which I do not
have), I can't really offer much more certainty. One way or the other, I
think we tend to want to align messages with our sense of everyday life.

RE some messages with little potential for misinterpretation...for eg.
"take out the trash,,," I think plenty of room for error is available.  My
eleven year old son might attest to this (seriously).  Sometimes I'll add
an implicit "please..." with inflection, for example, but he'll interpret
it that "Dad's pissed off about something...and my smart comment pissed
him off more, and that's why I'm taking out the garbage."  I think room
for ambiguity exists in most messages.  (Humans...we're so sloppy.)



> The reason I bring this up is because its seems to me that different kinds
> of rhetorics demand different degrees of precision in sending and
> receiving.  The level of redundancy (repetition, rearticulation) in an
> advertisement (but perhaps not an advertising campaign) and a presidential
> address would seem to be different.  Perhaps we need to think about the
> relation of agreement to rhetorical practices on the basis of what is
> trying to be achieved.  Is it a vague feeling of association/sympathy or a
> request/demand for very strong and knowlegable support for an important
> policy?  What are your thoughts?

I do agree that different degrees of precision are possible.  But, I think
that the differences between ad campaigns and presidential addresses are
far less than between other types.  I enjoy J. Baudrillard's analysis of
fetishism and ideology (and other aspects of the "political economy of the
sign").  I think that examining such mass messages as objects is
interesting and fun, in that they, as much as selling shampoo (ads,
T.Koppel and our charming new pres...), pres. addresses and ad campaigns
reproduce ideology. In such analysis, redundancy etc is salient...yet,
throwing in concepts like G.H. Mead's emergence (this is getting a bit out
of hand)...one imagines that a shrewd advertiser could employ redundance
(the code of signification...simulation...so forth...as in J.Baudrillard)
with emergence...and capture a "pluralist" audience.  (Yee haw.)  Hmmm.
I'll mull this one over later.

> It's also interesting that you should bring up the question of how diverse
> communities respond to television news.  I wonder if we could understand
> at least part of what broadcast news "communicates" to most of us is that
> most of what happened to _us_ today _isn't_ "news"?

But, it's news as soon as we apperceive it.

Well, that's all that I can stand. Sorry so long a message.
(Compostmodernism:  the next dominant paradigm.)

I look forward to further discourse.  Rick  (jeanbob@selway.umt.edu)
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