15 exigence
This is a really complex topic, so this short entry will only be a start.
I’ll open with Lloyd Bitzer’s famous 1968 essay on “rhetorical situation.” Bitzer describes an exigence as “an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be” (6). Bitzer observes that in almost every situation we walk into, there are many exigences. For example, when I got up this morning, I encountered a number of things that were waiting to be done. Coffee, news about the Russian invasion in Ukraine, others. We live in a world of imperfections marked by urgency.
He goes on to say that only some exigences are “rhetorical.” On this, I’ll quote him directly:
An exigence which cannot be modified is not rhetorical; thus, whatever comes about of necessity and cannot be changed— death, winter, and some natural disasters, for instance—are exigences to be sure, but they are not rhetorical. Further, an exigence which can be modified only by means other than discourse is not rhetorical; thus, an exigence is not rhetorical when its modification requires merely one’s own action or the application of a tool, but neither requires nor invites the assistance of discourse. An exigence is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse. (7)
While all the obstacles we encounter matter to us, in a composition course, we are interested in rhetorical exigences, imperfections, defects, obstacles, things that need doing that can be changed (or “modified”) with texts.
Want an example? Here’s Bitzer’s. Suppose that someone is acting in a way that is injuring other people: they are walking along the sidewalk and pulling people’s hair. Now suppose that by saying to that person, “Stop pulling people’s hair!” you can cause them to stop. That’s a rhetorical situation. A person injuring others is an imperfection in the situation. Your text changes the situation. Rhetorical exigence.
This example is a little too neat. It makes it seem like an exigence is a clearly identified thing laying around in a situation. All a composer needs to do is to pick the exigence up and respond to it. Jenny Edbauer (2005) argues that rather than a thing, an exigence is a sequence of interactions between composers, audience, and contexts. These interactions happen in a place. This seems closer to reality. Composers interact in situations and those interactions lead to identifying or creating imperfections, defects, obstacles, things that need doing. In those situations composers participate in already established processes for creating and circulating texts and responding to, creating, and interacting with exigencies. It’s messy. If you have ever been in a text argument with a couple folks, you know how messy it is.
School can make engaging exigences even more complicated. Consider this situation. You enter a class in which a teacher assigns a term paper that counts for 50 percent of your grade, and you want an A in the class. Lots of exigences here. Until the paper is completed, there is an imperfection in the situation in respect to your grade. As you learn in the class, you will also encounter all sorts of imperfections in your own understanding as well as those of others. You will also discover imperfections in your approach to writing and learning in general. Lots of exigences that you can engage with a text. You can write a term paper that meets your teachers expectation; you can use a text to try to convince your teacher that you are smart or that you agree with them. You can write an essay that satisfies your own curiosity. You can write a single draft or a series of drafts. You can dodge the assignment and create an infographic or slide deck and see if these genres impress your teacher (and modify the exigence created by the teacher). The exigence you engage shapes what you do, what sort of text you develop, what kinds of influence you try for.
Bottom line, composers find, take up, create, and reshape exigence in situations. Your work as a composer is to interact in a situation, encounter and create things that are not as they should be and generate texts that engage those things that are not as they should be.