Study sheet: Audience-Centered Rhetoric

📋 Course Outline

1. The Audience’s Advantage
2. Logos and Audience Resistance
3. Commonplaces as Starting Points
4. How Commonplaces Work
5. Labels, Stereotypes, and Identity
6. Finding and Using Commonplaces
7. Clashing Maxims and Rhetorical Tools

📖 1. The Audience’s Advantage

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• advantageous : the outcome that gives the audience what it values in a deliberative choice

★ Must-know

📌 A deliberative argument should be based on what is good for the audience rather than what is good for the speaker.

Further detail

• Aristotle maintained that the person most affected by a decision is the best judge of it.

💡 Memory Hook

The advantageous serves the audience, not the speaker.

📖 2. Logos and Audience Resistance

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Babbling : Aristotle — an arguer’s tendency to repeat the same rationale over and over

★ Must-know

• To construct a logos-based argument, begin with something the audience already believes or wants and then show that the proposed choice serves it.

Further detail

📌 When an audience repeats the same rationale, the rationale reveals the bedrock of its opinion even if the rationale is not objectively strong.

• In the 2004 presidential campaign example, Kathy repeatedly insisted that she did not want her taxes to go up, despite Annie’s arguments about the deficit.

💡 Memory Hook

Audience belief → argumentative starting point → possible persuasion.

📖 3. Commonplaces as Starting Points

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Commonplace : a short-form expression of common sense, public opinion, belief, or value that provides the starting point of an argument

★ Must-know

📌 A commonplace is a shared belief or rule of thumb, whereas a fact is not necessarily a commonly accepted belief.

📌 To shift an audience’s point of view, start from the audience’s commonplace rather than from the speaker’s own position.

Further detail

• “When I’m hungry, I eat right away” and “When I’m hungry, that’s good; it means I’m burning fat” are commonplaces held by different groups.

💡 Memory Hook

A speaker stands on the audience’s shared ground before moving the argument forward.

📖 4. How Commonplaces Work

★ Must-know

• A commonplace allows an audience to recognize a familiar idea without processing every supporting detail from the beginning.

Further detail

• The word “topic” comes from the Greek word topos, meaning “place,” and refers metaphorically to a point of view.

• “The early bird catches the worm” functions as a commonplace because it evokes the belief that rising early has moral and practical superiority over rising late.

💡 Memory Hook

A familiar phrase lights up a whole network of shared assumptions at once.

📖 5. Labels, Stereotypes, and Identity

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Commonplace label : applies a familiar shared belief to legislation, a proposal, or a political slogan so that opponents risk appearing to reject the underlying value

★ Must-know

📌 A commonplace is a shared notion that can create group connection, whereas a stereotype is an “evil twin” that assigns a preconceived image to a group.

📌 Commonplaces represent opinion rather than truth, so every commonplace can have a potential counter-commonplace.

Further detail

• Examples of political commonplace labels include:
  • No Child Left Behind
  • Operation Iraqi Freedom
  • Clear Skies
  • Healthy Forests Initiative
  • Culture of Life
  • Marriage Protection

💡 Memory Hook

A commonplace unites through shared belief; a stereotype fixes a group through a harmful assumption.

📖 6. Finding and Using Commonplaces

★ Must-know

• A persuader can use an audience’s rejection as a new starting ground by identifying the commonplace expressed in the rejection and continuing the argument from it.

Further detail

📌 A persuader does not have to share an audience’s commonplace but can use it as a jumping-off point without pretending to agree with it.

• Commonplaces are easy to find because audiences often express them when they reject an argument.

• Annie could have agreed that her taxes were high and then argued that Republican and Democratic politicians were alike, instead of directly denying Kathy’s tax concern.

💡 Memory Hook

Listen for rejection, agree with the ground, then extend the argument.

📖 7. Clashing Maxims and Rhetorical Tools

★ Must-know

📌 When commonplaces clash, arguments begin because competing shared values provide opposing grounds for judgment.

Further detail

• After 9/11, political language frequently emphasized “safety” and “security,” while later public discussion increasingly emphasized privacy limits on security.

• Competing political maxims include:

  • Don’t switch horses in midstream
  • Americans have a right to privacy in their own home
  • We’re at war

💡 Memory Hook

Conflicting commonplaces → arguments begin → public values shift.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Core Argumentary Starting Points

Notion	Role	Typical effect
The advantageous	Shows what benefits the audience	Makes a proposed choice attractive
The commonplace	Uses what the audience already believes	Creates the argument’s starting ground
The rejection	Reveals a commonplace through refusal	Provides a new ground for continuing
The commonplace label	Applies shared values to an issue	Makes opposition appear anti-value