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Towne • Æsop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator Page 84 2004). Since orators may employ rhetoric to discuss any subject, they must judge how to accommodate their audiences (Johnstone 1980). Moreover, when orators persuade audiences, they must allow audience members to deliberate (Johnson 2004; Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1980; Katz 2004; Moore 1997). Dubinsky (2004) notes that because Aristotle links rhetoric to “public deliberation and effective citizenship,” (246) he defines rhetoric as a fundamental element of political discourse. As orators use rhetoric, Aristotle considers the ethical and political implications of how they persuade their audiences. A Review of Contemporary Rhetoric Some scholars have argued that rhetoric and technical communication are not compatible. Moore (1997) and Carliner (1995) suggest that rhetoric has little to do with the problems students ultimately find in the workplace. For example, Moore (1997) asserts that rhetoric concerned public speakers who “defended or condemned a person’s past behavior, who praised or blamed someone in the present, or who tried to persuade an audience to accept a point of view about the future of an action” (107). Since Moore (1997) asserts that technical communication is task-oriented and thus does not persuade, he concludes that classical rhetoric is not the catholicon other scholars suggest. However, many scholars embrace Aristotle's rhetorical theories. Cooper (1935) notes that Aristotle has had a pervasive influence on rhetoric: “[E]very student of discourse is sure to be a debtor to the works of Aristotle whether the student is aware of it or never has read either of the works. No one can be a reader of books, and not read someone who has profited by reading Aristotle”(11). Like Cooper, Rapp and Wagner (2013) write that what Aristotle articulated provides a basis for historical and contemporary methods of persuasion. Rapp and Wagner (2013) even assert that although not all contemporary argumentation theorists are necessarily Aristotelian, “down to the present day argument theorists have been profoundly inspired by Aristotle’s theory of argumentation” (np). Moreover, Rowland and Womack (1985) say that rhetoric suits a democratic society since it “commands attention to both the emotional and rational faculties” (13). Thus, although some scholars suggest that Aristotle’s work is not relevant, other scholars look to Aristotle as they explore rhetorical theories today. In recent years, as scholars have considered rhetoric, they have also evaluated the nature of the rhetorical situation. Bitzer (1999) suggests that all rhetoric is an appropriate response to an event, like a fitting answer to a question. He suggests that events necessitate rhetoric. Communicators approach the latent rhetoric of events so that “a work is rhetorical because it is a response to a situation of a certain kind” (Bitzer 1999, 3). Moreover, he claims that rhetoric is a pragmatic tool since it ultimately produces an action (Bitzer 1999). Like Bitzer (1999), Vatz (1999) argues that rhetoric leads to action; however, Vatz opposes Bitzer and argues that orators use rhetoric to give events meaning. Vatz (1999) writes that meaning is not intrinsic to events since communicators must judge how they frame events for their audiences. He borrows Bitzer’s example to say that rhetoric structures rather than answers a question. Moreover, he asserts that communicators create meaning rather than discover it, contrary to what Bitzer (1999) argues. Vatz (1999) elevates the