The Rhetorical Experience of Language

Baktin postulates that language creates reality, and we know that language attaches meanings to words. Burke postulates that Hitler was able to be successful in his use of language with Mein Kampf, because he was able to find a “cure” with his words and then formulate his rhetorical performance and persuasion around that “cure” (Burke, 192). In my opinion, and this opinion is probably not too far off, but I think that language needs to have a purpose and rhetoric is what makes language what it is. I know that culture and society and other factors are what made us associate meanings with words (Baktin), but I think that in order for language to achieve what it needs to achieve, the rhetorical performance attached to the utterance of the word is what makes the language successful.

For example, with Mein Kampf, Hitler decided that the goal of his language was to convince the people that Jews were the reason they could not achieve Unity (i.e. Brian’s blog) and that in order to achieve it, the Jews needed to be killed off (i.e. the Holocaust). As Burke says, Hitler found a center movement to focus on and directed his language to that (Burke, 191). Hitler was able to persuade the people through his performance once he determined the goal of his language. Another example could be Saturday Night Live skits. These skits each have an issue that are satirizing and their purpose is to satirize them, so when they perform the skits, the people associated with the issue may interpret it and take it and experience it differently than those fans just watching the show. I guess a point I am trying to make is that everyone experiences language differently, and as a speaker, it is important to have a movement and goal when speaking (even in a casual conversation, we speak for a purpose, whether it is to catch up, be social, solve a problem, present ideas, etc) and once you have that, the language you choose will impact how you present it and how you present it will impact how it is interpreted (such as Hitler not presenting Mein Kamph at a raging party) because the performance of language is what makes language successful

“If the reviewer but knocks off a few adverse attitudinizings and calls it a day, with a guaranty in advance that his article will have a favorable reception among the decent members of our population, he is contributing more to our gratification than to our enlightenment” (Burke, 191).  I think this quote sums up a lot of my opinions.

-Alex Dishman