Rhetorical Appeals/Techniques

1
Rhetorical Appeals/Techniques

• Rhetorical 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.

2
RHETORICAL APPEALS

• How does a writer/speaker engage the audience?
• What appeals are most effective?

3
ETHOS(credibility)

• Greek for CHARACTER
• References 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?

4
How does this ad use ETHOS as a persuasive device?
5
How does this ad use ETHOS as a persuasive device?
6
PATHOS(emotional)

• Greek for SUFFERING or EXPERIENCE.
• Appeals to emotions emotional speech, appeals to
  the audiences sympathies or imaginations

7
How does this ad use PATHOS as a persuasive
device?
8
How does this ad use PATHOS as a persuasive
device?
9
LOGOS(Logic)

• Greek for WORD
• Appeals to reason, makes a logical argument about
  a particular subject or topic.
• These arguments demonstrate EVIDENCE, FACTS,
  OBVIOUS REASONS that make clear sense.

10
How does this ad use LOGOS as a persuasive device?
11
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?

12
Analogy

• Colorful or dramatic comparisons.
• The relationship of similarity between two or
  more entities on which a comparison is based.
• Ex. Similes/Metaphors
• Downtown is like the beating heart of the city.

13
How does this ad use ANALOGY as a persuasive
technique? What comparison is being made?
14
Allusion

• Figure of speech that makes
• references to a larger world of ideas, events,
  times, or places.
• Allusions may also make reference to another
  literary work.

15
How does this ad use ALLUSION as a persuasive
technique? What are the ads referencing?
16
Allusions are often made to Shakespeares
tragedy, Romeo Juliet. Can you think of any
modern-day songs, movies, or other works that
allude to this story?
17
TURN IN HW MEL-Con Response to Obama/MLK

• BELL RINGER
• How does the following image demonstrate ALL 3
  Rhetorical APPEALS?
• Ethos
• Logos
• Pathos

18
Antithesis

• Greek word ANTI AGAINST.
• Contrast of opposing ideas
• presenting the opposite side to make your own
  argument look more appealing.

19
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

20
Find an example of Antithesis in OBAMAs Speech

• 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. 

21
How does this ad use ANTITHESIS as a persuasive
technique?
22
Put your New Knowledge to the Test!Which
persuasive appeals techniques are evide?nt 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

23
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"

24
HOMEWORK

• For the excerpt Identify one appeal or technique
  employed by the speaker/writer. Write a MEL-Con
  paragraph describing an example of that technique
  and HOW it is persuasive.
• Main Idea What is the authors persuasive
  purpose and which technique is being used in the
  passage?
• Evidence Text example of technique
• Link How does this technique persuade the
  audience?
• Conclusion Is it effective?