1. The Rhetorical Triangle
Victoria Rock
August 23, 2012
The rhetorical triangle consists of three sides; the speaker, the audience, and the situation
or problem as well as the location it is going on in. By picturing a triangle and placing each part
of the approaches, you can picture the concept of the rhetorical triangle;
Speaker =‘s one side of a triangle, Audience =‘s another side of a triangle, and Situation
& Location =‘s the last part of the triangle.
Speaker Audience
Situation/ Location
When you think about it, every one of us uses the rhetorical triangle each and every day
of our lives. The rhetorical triangle is used when giving a speech or lecture, workshop,
discussion, or group activity. Depending on who you wish to communicate your ideas or
thoughts, depends on which of these approaches you will need to get your information across to
(The Rhetorical Triangle, 2011).
Speech/ Lecture
When giving a speech or lecture you have to figure out who your audience is and what or
where you will do it at. There is a big difference between a speech and lecture and so there will
be a big difference in the way you use the rhetorical triangle. A speech is used like a script with
an outline of what you want to say. When thinking of speeches I tend to think of politicians
because they talk of a specific thing in order to persuade or move a person to their ideas. A
person giving a lecturer will be informing you about their information much like teachers when
explaining a subject matter. Speeches and Lectures are used when a person addresses a large
group with little interaction with the audience (Johnston, 2012). So by looking at the diagram
above you can see how the rhetorical triangle works within the guidelines of a speech or lecture;

2. Speech/Lecture; Speaker = Politicians/Teacher, Audience = the public/students, Situation
& location = their ideas & stage or platform/subject & classroom
Workshop/Group Activities
Workshops and group activities are used to educate small groups of people. They gather
together for a period of time to work on a single project to inform, solve problems, and for
training. With workshops and group activities you will find there are two different kinds,
technical and applied. Depending on what you objectives are will depend on what and how you
will get your message across. For a technical approach you will use the same format as you
would for a lecture, while the applied method is more of a hand on approach (What is a
workshop?, 1998). Workshops and group activities are used to teach a group of people about a
certain topic and allow the audience a chance to ask questions and discuss the topic presented. It
also gives the opportunity to take part in activities in order to learn more about the topic. Some
examples as to how the rhetorical triangle is used in workshops and group activities are;
Technical; Speaker = Professor, Audience = Students, Situation & Location = Subject
matter & classroom
Applied; Speaker = Instructor, Audience = Employees, Situation & Location = Product &
work area
Discussion
A discussion is much like what we do in a classroom or even at home with our families.
The teacher or parent gives us a topic or subject to talk about and we each give our ideas on the
subject and interact with each other to come to a conclusion. As we can see the rhetorical
triangle works here as well;
Speaker = Teacher, Audience = Students, Situation & Location = Subject & classroom
Speaker = Parent/Spouse, Audience = Child/ Spouse, Situation & Location =
Idea/problem & home
So as you can see the rhetorical triangle is an important part of our everyday lives and is
used to get messages across to others in the best way possible for each situation (The Rhetorical
Triangle, 2011).
Reference

3. Johnston, K. (2012). Difference Between a Speech & a Lecture. Retrieved from eHow:
http://www.ehow.com/info_8388025_difference-between-speech-lecture.html
(2011). The Rhetorical Triangle. In E. Board, Introduction to Communications (pp. 136-145). Words of
Wisdom.
What is a workshop? (1998, July 2). Retrieved from LinguaLinks Library:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/referencematerials/glossaryofliteracyterms/whatisawork
shop.htm