Rhetorical Appeals/TechniquesRhetorical APPEALS (to the audience):

ETHOS LOGOS PATHOS

Rhetorical TECHNIQUES (Use of language): ANALOGY ALLUSION ANTITHESIS

**Please take detailed notes in the Vocab section of your notebook. Write the definition and give one or two examples of each appeal or technique. You might also draw a symbol or illustration to help you remember each new term.

RHETORICAL APPEALS

How does a writer/speaker engage the audience?

What appeals are most effective?

ETHOS(credibility)

Greek for CHARACTERReferences to authority,

experiences, character, or integrity of the speaker as a persuasive device.

Is the author believable?

Is the speaker a good person, to be trusted?

How does this ad use ETHOS as a persuasive device?

How does this ad use ETHOS as a persuasive device?

PATHOSPATHOS(emotional)(emotional)

Greek for Greek for SUFFERING SUFFERING or or EXPERIENCE.EXPERIENCE.

Appeals to emotions; Appeals to emotions; emotional speech, emotional speech, appeals to the appeals to the audienceaudience’’s s sympathies or sympathies or imaginationsimaginations

How does this ad use PATHOS as a persuasive device?

How does this ad use PATHOS as a persuasive device?

LOGOSLOGOS(Logic)(Logic)

Greek for WORD:Greek for WORD:Appeals to reason, Appeals to reason,

makes a logical makes a logical argument about a argument about a particular subject or particular subject or topic.topic.

These arguments These arguments demonstrate demonstrate EVIDENCE, FACTS, EVIDENCE, FACTS, OBVIOUS REASONS OBVIOUS REASONS that make clear sense.that make clear sense.

How does this ad use LOGOS as a persuasive device?

RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES:

Now, how do writers/speakers play with words to create these effects on the audience?

What techniques do we use to effectively persuade an audience?

AnalogyAnalogy

Colorful or dramatic Colorful or dramatic comparisons.comparisons.

The The relationship of relationship of similaritysimilarity between between two or more entities two or more entities on which a on which a comparison is based.comparison is based.

Ex. Similes/MetaphorsEx. Similes/Metaphors

Downtown is like the Downtown is like the beating heart of the beating heart of the city. city.

How does this ad use ANALOGY as a persuasive technique? What comparison is being made?

AllusionAllusion

Figure of speech Figure of speech that makesthat makes

references to a references to a larger world of larger world of ideas, events, ideas, events, times, or places.times, or places.

Allusions may also Allusions may also make reference to make reference to another literary work.

How does this ad use ALLUSION as a persuasive technique? What are the ads referencing?

Allusions are often made to Shakespeare’s tragedy, Romeo & Juliet. Can you think of any modern-day songs, movies, or other works that allude to this

story?

AntithesisAntithesis

Greek word ANTI= Greek word ANTI= AGAINST.AGAINST.

Contrast of opposing Contrast of opposing ideas… ideas…

presenting the presenting the opposite side to opposite side to make your own make your own argument look more argument look more appealing.appealing.

Examples of Antithesis in Speeches

"...although the surface appears to be...very, very fine-grained as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder...Okay, I'm going to step off the LEM now.  That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind."-- Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 Moon Landing Speech

"The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."-- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (delivered by Jeff Daniels)

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"-- Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

How does this ad use ANTITHESIS as a persuasive technique?

Put your New Knowledge to the Test!Which persuasive appeals & techniques are

evident in this excerpt from a speech by Barack Obama?

“This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work. This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news. We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes. ”

Barack Obama Night Before the Election Speech Manassas, Prince William County, Virginia November 3, 2008

Put your New Knowledge to the Test!Which persuasive appeals & techniques are evident in this excerpt from “Letter from a

Birmingham Jail” by MLK, Jr.?My Dear Fellow Clergymen:While confined here in Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."...Since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable in terms. I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in."...I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here.  I am here because I have organizational ties here But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.  Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.  Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

HOMEWORK:HOMEWORK: For the excerpt: Identify one appeal or technique For the excerpt: Identify one appeal or technique

employed by the speaker/writer. Write a MEL-Con employed by the speaker/writer. Write a MEL-Con paragraph describing an example of that technique paragraph describing an example of that technique and HOW it is persuasive.and HOW it is persuasive.

Main Idea: Main Idea: What is the author’s persuasive What is the author’s persuasive purpose and which technique is being used in purpose and which technique is being used in the passage?the passage?

Evidence: Evidence: Text example of techniqueText example of technique Link: Link: How does this technique persuade the How does this technique persuade the

audience?audience? Conclusion: Conclusion: Is it effective?Is it effective?