The Levels of Ambience: an Introduction to Integrative Rhetoric by Stephen R
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The Levels of Ambience: An Introduction to Integrative Rhetoric By: Stephen R. Yarbrough Yarbrough, Stephen R. The Levels of Ambience: An Introduction to Integrative Rhetoric. Intermezzo, 2018. Made available courtesy of Intermezzo: http://intermezzo.enculturation.net/09- yarbrough.htm This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Abstract: Although felt as a vague though often powerful sense of the world’s presence as we engage in a rhetorical situation, ambience is the highly complex and integrated totality of the world’s environmental, behavioral, symbolic, and temporal dimensions and their fields of objects, agents, relations, and forces of which we may or may not become aware and with which we may or may not intentionally engage. Although we may feel it so, ambience is not merely a vague, amorphous background to our conscious acts which gives it meaning; rather, it is itself highly organized and organizing, developing from our interactions with the world in a series of succeeding integrative levels, each with its own structures based upon and providing purpose to the lower, earlier developed structures it supervenes and each providing meaning to the higher, later developed structures that depend upon it. Keywords: ambience | rhetoric | integrative rhetoric | dimension | interactions E-book: ***Note: Full text of e-book below enculturation intermezzo • ENCULTURATION ~ INTERMEZZO • ENCULTURATION, a Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture, announces the launch of Intermezzo, a series dedicated to publishing long essays – between 20,000 and 80,000 words – that are too long for journal publication, but too short to be a monograph. 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Intermezzo contributes to this nascent movement by providing new spaces for scholarly writing that the academic journal and monograph cannot accommodate. Essays are meant to be provocative, intelligent, and not bound to standards traditionally associated with “academic writing.” While essays may be academic regarding subject matter or audience, they are free to explore the nature of digital essay writing and the various logics associated with such writing - personal, associative, fragmentary, networked, non-linear, visual, and other rhetorical gestures not normally appreciated in traditional, academic publishing. Intermezzo essays are meant to be speculative, exploratory, and a mix of the informal and the formal. Essays may come from a variety of disciplinary approaches or may mix approaches. Intermezzo is meant to be a venue where writers can produce scholarly work in unique ways, outside of institutional or disciplinary expectation, and it takes advantage of digital media as a platform for both content and distribution of timely topics. i INTERMEZZO EDITORS EDITOR : Jeff Rice, University of Kentucky ASSOCIATE EDITORS : Casey Boyle, University of Texas-Austin Jim Brown, Rutgers University-Camden ASSISTANT EDITORS : Eric Detweiler, Middle Tennessee State University Sergio C. Figueiredo, Kennesaw State University Sierra Mendez, University of Texas-Austin Maclin B. Scott, University of Texas-Austin EDITORIAL BOARD : Eli C. Goldblatt, Temple University Debra Hawhee, Pennsylvania State University Byron Hawk, University of South Carolina Cynthia Haynes, Clemson University Christa Olson, University of Wisconsin Paul Prior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Blake Scott, University of Central Florida Scott Wible, University of Maryland << INTERMEZZO ESSAYS >> are published as open source texts. >> are freely available for download. >> undergo peer review. >> take advantage of online distribution in order to publish projects quickly and efficiently. >> are designed for desktop and mobile digital reading platforms. >> are assigned an ISBN number in order to provide authors professional credibility and further accessibility to global audiences. H tt P :// intermezzo . en CUL T U ration . net ii enculturation.net enculturation ISBN: 978-0-9864333-7-5 PUBLISHED UNDER AN ATTRIBUTION-NONCOMMERCIAL-SHAREALIKE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE iii THE LEVELS OF AMBIENCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO INTEGRatIVE RHETORIC by Stephen R. Yarbrough INTERMEZZO, 2018 The Levels of Ambience: An Introduction to Integrative Rhetoric By Stephen R. Yarbrough Originally published by Intermezzo, 2018 Published under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License ISBN: 978-0-9864333-7-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964157 Cover Image/Video: Stages of a Painting © Rani Garner 2017 (Converted into a Video Slideshow with Permission of the Artist) Layout: Rene Morgan (Kennewsaw State University) Ella Greer (Kennesaw State University) intermezzo.enculturation.net v D ED I CAT I ON For my daughter, Anna, who has felt the answers and now seeks the right questions. vi C ONTENTS PREFACE: RETROSPECTS . 1 INTRODUCTION . 13 FIELDS . 21 TOPICS AND OBJECTS . 27 THE CONCEPT OF INTEGratiVE LEVELS . 30 SUPERVENIENCE . 33 CHAPTER 1: THE ENVIRONMENtal DIMENSION . 37 PHYSICOCHEMICAL INTERACTIONS . 39 SENSORIAL INTERACTIONS . 41 THE AUDitory FIELD . 48 CHAPTER 2: THE BEHAVIORAL DIMENSION . 52 TECHNICAL AND ETHICAL INTERACTIONS . 53 SOCIAL INTERACTIONS . 57 CHAPTER 3: THE SYMBOLIC DIMENSION . 68 DISCURSIVE INTERACTIONS . 70 GENRIC INTERACTIONS . 75 LINGUISTIC INTERACTIONS . 77 LOGICAL INTERACTIONS . 82 REFLECTIVE INTERACTIONS . 91 THE SENSE OF SELF . 92 THE SENSE OF ERROR . .96 vii C ONTENTS CHAPTER 4: THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION . 104 KAIROS . 106 EXIGENCE . 107 MOTIVE . 112 RECURRENCE . 114 SPatio-TEMPORAL SHIFTING . 116 AGENCY AND PREFERENCE . 124 CONCLUSION: SUMMARY AND PROSPECTS . 130 ENDNOTES . 139 WORKS CITED . 147 viii L I ST OF F I GURES FIGURE 1: THE FOUR RHETORICAL DIMENSIONS . 17 FIGURE 2: HARD-CRACK StaGE . 19 FIGURE 3: EFFECT OF MAGNETIC FIELD . 24 FIGURE 4: EMERGENCE OF NEW FIELD THROUGH TOPICAL INTEGration . 27 FIGURE 5: MAN TRIPPING OVER TOY . 29 FIGURE 6: MIRROR-EFFECT . .. 32 FIGURE 7: ANOMALOUS MONISM . 34 FIGURE 8: WALL OF ResistanCE . 41 FIGURE 9: BROWNIAN MOTION . 41 FIGURE 10: LIMITS OF SEMANTIC POSSIBILITY . 44 FIGURE 11: JUDSON AND RODDEN GRAPHIC OF SPEAKER-AUDIENCE RELation . 45 FIGURE 12: SOUND WAVES . 48 FIGURE 13: THE COCktaiL-Party EFFECT . 51 FIGURE 14: ANOMALOCARIS SARON FEEDING ON A TRILOBITE . 56 FIGURE 15: FINITE RECURSION . 59 FIGURE 16: THE GENERAL SOCIAL INTERACTION CYCLE . 61 FIGURE 17: DEIXIS . 66 FIGURE 18: MECH’S DIAGRAM OF WOLVES LYING IN WAIT . 71 FIGURE 19: DISCURSIVE FIELD-MAPPING . 74 FIGURE 20: EMERGING LINGUISTIC FIELD . 79 FIGURE 21: WORLD UPSIDE DOWN . 82 FIGURE 22: JASTROW’S DUCK-RABBIT . 84 ix L I ST OF F I GURES FIGURE 23: SYLLOGISTIC IMPLICation . 86 FIGURE 24: JOGGING Partners . 88 FIGURE 25: INFINITE GAME . 91 FIGURE 26: HIT TO LEFT FIELD ..