As I can see
after reading Carroll's "Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis," we are
surrounded by genres every day. A common genre that we often run in to is
a restaurant menu. A menu often follows a specific structure. For
example, a menu is divided into sections such as drinks, sides, entrees,
desserts, etc. Whether or not a restaurant includes certain items depends
on the context, a key component in every rhetorical situation. In the
article called "The Rhetorical Situation," Lloyd Bitzer argues that
there are three parts to understanding the context of a rhetorical moment:
exigence, audience, and constraints. Let me first discuss the exigence in
referring to a menu.
Exigence is the circumstance or
condition that invites a response. When deciding
what to include in a menu, you must ask yourself “What do I want to accomplish?” A menu is meant to provide friendly and
inviting font styles and structures that make the consumer feel welcome in the
restaurant. Another question that you
must ask is “What particular audience am I trying to attract?” A menu is a bit broader than other genres but
it is also specific when it comes down to it.
The menu has to be easy enough to read for younger children, but also
has to keep a sophisticated and elegant look that satisfies the older aged
party. The audience is anyone that comes
into the restaurant, but in order to have those consumers come back and eat at
the restaurant again, the menu has to be inviting to all ages. The third piece of context is the restraints
a genre can have. The way a menu is
presented influences the consumers decisions on what items they are going to
order as well as possibly how much money they will spend. A couple common constraints a menu can have
is the order in which they choose to present certain dishes, whether or not to
exemplify popular dishes, and whether to include pictures or not.
Another element of rhetorical
analysis is purpose. What is the purpose
of menu? The purpose of a menu is to
provide the consumer with the comfort of being able to choose what dish they
want on the leisure of their own time.
Not only that, but a menu simply provides the customer with what options
the restaurant offers.
When analyzing rhetoric, another element
to think about is the style and tone of the genre. Specifically referring to a menu, the style
of a menu can be determined by things such as the font, layout, structure and
the colors. At the discretion of the
restaurant, they can decide exactly how they believe their menu will best suit
their customers. For example, the
restaurant in Dave and Buster’s menu will want to be much more fun with bright
colors and a more layed back style compared to a five-star steak house that
would probably not have much color and be more carefully structured.
As you can see, a genre has many components
and conventions that make that genre, that genre. With rhetorical analysis, you can better
understand why certain things are this way and why other things are that
way. As Carroll said, “Individuals who
understand rhetorical analysis and act to make change can have a tremendous
influence on their world.”
Ryan Kelly,
ReplyDeleteRestaurant menus! They’re, 100%, a specific genre—and a textual one no less. I’m really impressed that you busted out a reference to the “rhetorical moment” and analyzed menus in terms of their exigence, audience, and constraints. Very, very cool. I particularly like what you mentioned here about constraints: “A couple common constraints a menu can have is the order in which they choose to present certain dishes, whether or not to exemplify popular dishes, and whether to include pictures or not.” For sure, and other constraints you could consider from a “genre analysis” perspective could be whether the menu is digitally-accessible, hyperlinked for an easy to-go iPhone delivery order, and maybe even the prices—the $ range could possibly give us insights into the clientele and possibly even the socioeconomics of the community. (All from 1 restaurant menu!)
Awesome work here. In the future, I’d like you to consider bringing your blog to life a bit more by adding in some visuals. Plus, that could also benefit your ability to use direct textual evidence to support your claims.
Z
To me, there are not many differences in the layout of menus from restaurant to restaurant. While the font, colors, and choice of pictures may give some menus a different “feel” than others, for the most part they are quite similar. Like you said, they are broken down into sections, such as entrees, appetizers, drinks, desserts, etc. Almost all restaurants are going to have these same categories for customers to choose from. I think it would be interesting to do an analysis of menus in general, not just specifically ones from restaurants. For example, the menu of a restaurant is going to be completely different than the menu posted on the wall of an ice cream shop. While it would still be divided into categories, they would not be the same. Instead there would be ice cream flavors, sundaes, milkshakes, toppings, etc. These two types of menus would look different and contain different information, yet still be considered the same genre. Dirk even touched on this idea in the Navigating Genres reading when he says, “two texts that might fit into the same genre might also look extremely different.” Though most menus try to accomplish many of the same goals, a paper menu, versus a multi-page laminated menu, versus a menu of a drive-through is going to influence the consumer experience and their choices.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteTo begin, I think you chose a very creative and interesting genre. I really liked how your reference to the Bitzer reading provided a clear structure for your essay. You very clearly addressed all of your genre's rhetorical features and gave ample evidence. I also liked your use of questions in the essay followed by a clear answer to that question. You also addressed the issue of how two works can be classified as the same genre but look different when you wrote "For example, the restaurant in Dave and Buster’s menu will want to be much more fun with bright colors and a more layed back style compared to a five-star steak house that would probably not have much color and be more carefully structured." Two menus can serve the same purpose, but they can differ in their audience and style, therefore looking completely different, although still the same genre. The people going to a five-star steakhouse have much higher expectations of a menu, so the restaurant must meet these expectations and provide a sleek, elegant menu. Overall, I enjoyed your paper and thought you gave good explanations for all of your points. :)
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteRestaurant menu is definitely one of the creative textual genres in our everyday life. Not like essay, novel and letter whose audience is often academic readers, restaurant menus actually have a larger population of audience and it is very close to us. You analyzed a restaurant menu through its exigence, audience, restraint, purpose and tone. I think that is very comprehensive. I like your idea that "The menu has to be easy enough to read for younger children, but also has to keep a sophisticated and elegant look that satisfies the older aged party." This idea sounds very professional and accurate. After reading your PB1A, I feel that I have a more concrete understanding of how to analyze a genre.
Zhicheng
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteRestaurant menu is definitely one of the creative textual genres in our everyday life. Not like essay, novel and letter whose audience is often academic readers, restaurant menus actually have a larger population of audience and it is very close to us. You analyzed a restaurant menu through its exigence, audience, restraint, purpose and tone. I think that is very comprehensive. I like your idea that "The menu has to be easy enough to read for younger children, but also has to keep a sophisticated and elegant look that satisfies the older aged party." This idea sounds very professional and accurate. After reading your PB1A, I feel that I have a more concrete understanding of how to analyze a genre.
Zhicheng
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI thought that choosing a menu as your genre was very creative and not something that I would have thought to analyze, yet it is one of the texts we encounter in life quite frequently. I thought that your project builder had a clear and well formatted structure, which made it very easy as a reader to see the different elements of your rhetorical analysis. I really enjoyed the last paragraph of your assignment where you provided a few examples of different menu structures. I felt like this did a great job of explaining how while all menus strive to accomplish the same goal, they are also expected to be visually distinct per each individual restaurant.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI thought your choice of a restaurant menu was interesting and creative. I thought you did well in describing exigence and how it applies to the genre that you picked. It was also interesting that you went into the purpose of a menu right after exigence simply because that is the response that exigence requires. You did an excellent job of bringing in a real world example as well, with the reference to Dave and Busters and how they cater their menu to the customers that they are expecting, overall I thought your PB was well written and inciteful. Your rhetorical analysis of the genre was spot on, I thought, and you tied it all together well.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the creativity in your assignment. My original thought for the assignment was to use a party invitation but wasn't sure how to go about it, but I admire how creative you were able to get. I thought it was interesting how the conventions of your piece aligned partially with the design of the menu. How it is inviting and welcoming is definitely something that would stick out to a customer. I think you being able to understand this is what I was missing to be able to do my assignment on invitations! I also thought you did a great job being able to relate menus to each element of a genre. You were very thorough and I thought your creativity really shined through in this assignment!
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I would have thought of a menu as fitting into a genre, but it completely does! Way to think outside the box for getting that one. I appreciated your comparison of different menu types, but I can’t help but wonder if your assessment would have been different if you had included fast food menus in your discussion. A McDonald’s menu for instance, or Taco Bell. A fast food restaurant that has its menu up on a wall for convenient viewing while ordering takes menus to a new level. I agree with your statement, however, that menus definitely vary in design and structure as you increase in the stars. Good job on the first PB!
- Bronwyn
I really think this was an awesome and very creative genre to pick. I never would thought to do it myself. I really enjoyed that you discussed the menu differences you would find between Dave and Busters and a fancy steakhouse. That example really stuck with me.I think a really cool area to explore would be how different culturally specific restaurants approach the creation of a menu. For example an Italian restaurant vs. a Chinese restaurant. Another thought I had while reading your post was that some high end restaurants have set menus and how for some people that takes away the anxiety of picking but for others it brings on the anxiety that comes with being limited. People function in different ways and I think it's so cool!
ReplyDeleteBest
-Dan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Ryan! I found it very interesting to see a menu being dissected into a genre because I don't think I would have ever thought to include menus in the categories of genres on my own. I thought that this blog post was really unique and that you did a really good job showing how a dinner menu is a genre and how it has specific features and conventions that make it a genre. I liked how thorough you were with explaining each rhetorical features and how well you related each rhetorical feature back to menus. Overall I thought you did a really good job with this blog post!
ReplyDeleteDeanna