November 18, 2012

Rhetorical Strategies and Terministic Screens

In George's "Mr. Burke, Meet Helen Keller" the three rhetorical strategies for their audiences intrigued me the most because they brought me back to "Terministic Screens." It is said that boring from within "advances controversial arguments by identifying them with existing cultural values (George 341)" and I feel this was can be done when using terministic screens. In class, we used the case of Lupe Fiasco's song "Bitch bad" and it was shown as an example of how the word "Bitch" is identified in the African American Culture today. The fact that Lupe used the multimedia of videos, which is the same multimedia that creates the ideas of what it means to be a "Bad Bitch" is how he is trying to identify with his culture by what they value and this created a stir in the groups of people that discussed the songs meaning.

When Burke uses the example "Believe, that you may understand" as being a problem with terministic screens I feel this is the same strategy used in translation. Translating is a way to convey a message by understanding the receiver. There needs to be a change in the language by looking at one's own perspective from another point of view. This is how this example would be a problem for translating as well because the translator must do more than believe, they must achieve at understanding the ways terms can be viewed. Then the last rhetorical strategy being perspective by incongruity can be explained as a way he sender should understand that not everyone receiving the message will have the same interpretation as them. Therefore, they should be aware that "all members of our species conceive of reality somewhat roundabout, through various media of symbolism (Burke 52)."

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