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backbone of persuasion
Rhetorical Appeals/Modes of
Persuasion
Aristotle outlined 3 overall ways to persuade:
Logos: appeals to logic/reason the power of proving a
truth, or an apparent truth.
Ethos: appeals to ethics/values, or the ethical credibility
of the speaker the speaker's power of creating a
personal character which will make his speech
credible.
Pathos: appeals to emotion the power of stirring the
emotions of the audience.
*GOOD WRITING CONTRIBUTES TO ETHOS
Rhetorical Devices
Rhetorical devices used include:
Charged words (diction)
Restatement
Repetition
Rhetorical questions and hypophora
Aphorisms
Allusions
Analogy
Parallel structure and antithesis
*We will now explore all these using examples
from articles we have read thus far.
Device: Repetition
Repetition is the direct repetition of words
or phrases, often added for emphasis, to
establish tone, and convey perspective.
In Politics and the English Language,
Orwell repeats the following words: bad,
decay, meaningless, political, stupidity,
etc.
Device: Restatement
Restatement is repeating an idea in a variety of ways. Consider
the number of ways Orwell stated that people misuse the English
language:
Our civilization is decadent and our language so the
argument runs must inevitably share in the general
collapse (Orwell 1, para 1).
When you think of something abstract you are more inclined
to use words from the start, and unless you make a
conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come
rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or
even changing your meaning (Orwell 5, para 2).
A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even
among people who should and do know better (Orwell 4,
para 5).
Device: Analogy
In rhetoric, analogies are reasoning or
explaining from parallel cases. They are
also known as extended metaphors.
any struggle against the abuse of language
is a sentimental archaism, like preferring
candles to electric light or hansom cabs to
aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the halfconscious belief that language is a natural
growth and not an instrument which we shape
for our own purposes (Orwell 1, para 1).
Device: Antithesis
Antithesis is the juxtaposition (purposeful placement)
of opposing ideas in balanced (parallel) phrases or
clauses; in other words it is a mixture of loose
parallelism and opposing charged words.
But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a
word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can
rely on when instinct fails (Orwell 5, para 2).
NOW YOU TRY: Political language and with
variations this is true of all political parties, from
Conservatives to Anarchists is designed to make
lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (Orwell 5,
last para).
Lastly
Tone and other types of figurative
language (metaphor, hyperbole,
understatement, etc.) can also contribute
to the rhetoric of a text. Make sure to take
notice of those aspects as well.
Anything that is a literary device could be
used as a rhetorical device as well
depending on the audience and purpose
of the text.
Logos strategies
Ethos strategies
Pathos strategies