Everything is Rhetorical

By Dianna TrangGrapevine High School

Grapevine, TX

“ “ . . .. . . the faculty of the faculty of observing in any given observing in any given case the available case the available means of persuasion." means of persuasion."

Isn’t everything rhetorical?What are the inherent communications here?

Clothes

Specs Fingernails (!)

Handbags

Hairstyles

Communication is a three-sided relationship… 

each point of the triangle: • influences the others.• Carries some responsibility for the

success of the communication.• corresponds with one of Aristotle’s

three appeals: logos, ethos, and pathos.• is influenced by the context of the

communication. 

Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle

Logos

PathosEthos

  http//:www.public.asu.edu/rjvavasu/rhet-triangle.htm

Logos(literally “word”; also understood as

“topic”)• What are the facts?

– Data– Expert testimony– Statistics– Eye Witness– Testimonials– Evidence– Logical Reasoning: Induction and

Deduction

Ethos(“character”)

• Convincing the reader by the character of the author:– Conveyed through tone and style of

writer.– Can be based on the writer’s reputation,

experience, or expertise.– Can be based on the writer’s integrity and

honesty.– Can be revealed through writer’s

respectability and likeability.

From : http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html

Pathos(literally means “suffering”)

• Affects the reader’s emotional response to the text:– Attempts to play on our needs, desires,

fears, and insecurities.– Appeals to our “imagination and

sympathies.”– Created through use of vivid examples

and emotionally charged diction.– Uses narrative and personal anecdote.

From : http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html

James Kinneavy’s Communication

Triangle

Text

Logos Subject-Based Writing: instructions. tech manuals,

textbooks, information-based writing

Pathos Reader-Based Writing: poems, stories, novels,

editorials, ads, essays

Ethos Writer-based Writing:

shopping lists, diaries, scrapbooks

How does the subject affect the writer?

How does the writeraffect the subject?

How does the subject affect the reader?

How does thereader affectthe subject?

How does the reader affect the writer?

How does the writer affect the reader??

Text

Joliffe’s Rhetorical Framework Design

ExigenceExigence

Audience

Purpose

Logos

PathosToneEthos

Organization/Structure/Form

FigurativeLanguage

ImagerySyntaxDiction

What happened that may have made the writer to want to write this?

Whom may the author had in mind when writing this piece?

What might the writer be hoping to accomplish?

With what evidence does the writer to prove his claim or thesis?

Is the writer credible?

How does the writer create an emotional

response in the reader?

Exigence

• Try to think of what may have been the reason for the writer to sit down and write the piece you are reading.– When you write an essay, the exigence is the

teacher is making you or you want a good grade to pass the class.

– What are other reason for writing something?• A shopping list?• A poem? A biography? An editorial?

Audience

• Try to keep in mind who the ORIGINAL audience for the piece was .

• Think for a minute:– Whom were the Gospels written for?– Who was the Declaration of Independence

written for?

Purpose

• What is the writer hoping to achieve by writing this document?

• Are there any consequences that might occur because of this writing?– Think about:

• A shopping list

• A short story

• A speech

• A poem

• An editorial in the newspaper

Tone

• Is created through use of logos, pathos and ethos, which are created through facts, word choices, sentence structure, figurative language, and appeals to our senses.

Organization/Structure/Form

• Is it in chronological order or spatial order?

• Is there any organization?

• Are there paragraphs or not?

• Are the paragraphs long or short or a combination thereof?

• Is it a letter? A memo? An article? An essay? A narrative?

Diction

• Is about the words a writer chooses to use

• Considers the connotation of a word (emotional associations we have with words) versus the denotation of a word (the literal meaning of a word)

• Example: svelte/skinny/scrawny;

striking/flamboyant; to die/to pass on

Syntax

• Identifies and analyzes sentence structure.• Look for long sentences versus short.• Long sentences explain.• Short sentences declare facts (or try to)• Rhetorical questions and fragments• Schemes:

– Anaphora (I came, I saw. I conquered.)

– Asyndeton (He was a winner, a hero)

– Polysyndeton ( I laughed and played and talked and flunked.)

Imagery

• From Earnest Hemingway’s “Three Day Blow” :– "The rain stopped as Nick turned into the road

that went up through the orchard. The fruit had been picked and the fall wind blew through the bare trees"(205).

Imagery appeals to your senses to make the scene more vivid, alive, and real.

Figurative Language

• Tropes such as:– Metaphor: My love is a red, red rose.– Simile: This is as exciting as dirt.– Synecdoche: 60 eyes watched the teacher.– Metonymy: The White House announced. . . – Personification: The wind whispered secrets.– Hyperbole: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.– And many more