RHETORIC“He who does not study

rhetoric will be victim of it.” – found on a Greek wall from 6th Century B.C.

Developing Skill with Rhetoric: The Rhetorical Triangle

“Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

What is Rhetoric?

The art of communication…

Analysis and comprehension of how a writer or speaker has achieved his or her effect from a text on an audience.

What does this mean to you?

The Three Appeals: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Ethos: Understanding the Ethical Appeal

Ethos = the writer or speaker’s credibility on his or her subject; the speaker’s ability to acknowledge the opposing view

What can we tell about the “character” of the speaker?

If we don’t know the author, then we have to look at his or her text:• Tone of the text• Persona

Situated and Invented Ethos

Situated EthosThe kind of character developed “around” the speaker/writer. Whenever we are dealing with writers we know, writers who have been talked about a great deal or popular figures that we encounter in the press, these writers have an established ethos situated in who they are and how they have been represented.

Invented EthosThe kind of character developed “in the text,” the ways that the writer’s words and phrases, as well as selection of examples and ideas, establish the writer’s authority.

George W. Bush was the son of a political family—his father and been vice president for eight years and was then president for four years. He had also served in many political offices before that. In addition, the family is known for its “wealth.”

Barack Obama is the first U.S. president born in Hawaii. He is the son of parents who divorced when he was still very young. He attended Harvard Law School and became the first black president of the United States.

Situated and Invented Ethos Examples

Pathos: Understanding the Pathetic (Emotional) Appeal

Pathos = an emotional appeal upon the audience

Most people make decisions based upon a more emotional than logical basis

Logos: Understanding Logical Appeal

Logos = the methods of persuasion within the language itself (logos = word; “logic”)

How the argument is supported (facts, statistics, words of experts and examples)

Why Rhetoric?

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march , to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”

--Richard Wright

Six Keys of Rhetoric Skills

Persona Appeals to

Audience Subject Matter and

Its Treatment Context Intention Genre

#1: Understanding Persona

Reason for Importance:

So you don’t get fooled by the author

The writer/speaker creates a persona to make himself or herself more believable and trustworthy so that the audience will buy into what he or she is saying

Persona = the “mask” or character the writer or speaker creates for him/herself

#2: Understanding the Appeals to the Audience

Ethos

Pathos

Logos

THE THREE APPEALS:

#3 Subject Matter and Its Treatment

When deciding what kinds of information to include in a text, writers and speakers need to keep in mind…

INTENTION: What is the purpose of the text? What am I trying to achieve?

AUDIENCE: To whom is the text directed?

GENRE: What kind of text is most appropriate for my audience?

#4: ContextDEFINITION: HOW SOCIETY IMPACTS THE SUBJECT OF A TEXT

An effective writer or speaker knows how to refer to context to help the audience understand the position he or she takes and to connect positively with his or her argument

A careful reader understands how context affects the text he or she is analyzing.

#5: Intention

INTENTION = PURPOSE

What the writer or speaker wants to happen as a result of the text; what he or she wants the audience to believe or do after hearing or reading the textPURPOSE OF THE TEXT:• To persuade• To inform• To entertain• To call to action

#6: Genre

audience + purpose = most appropriate genre

Questions the writer or speaker should ask to help find the most appropriate genre of text:

1. What is the context calling forth a piece of writing?

2. Who needs to know what I intend to write about?

3. What is the best, most appropriate genre to produce?

Malala Yousafza

i

Why must I

write what I

write? Who

needs to

hear this?

Works Cited

Banks, William P. “A Short Handbook on Rhetorical Analysis.” 2001. 27 Feb.

2007. http://english.ecu.edu/~wpbanks/rhetoric/rhetanalysis.html.

Roskelly, Hephzibah & Joliffe, David. Everyday

Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing. Pearson Longman, New York: 2005.

* Presentation adapted from Docstoc.com