Rhetoric Strategies

Rhetoric Strategies

The speaker of the first speech employs rhetoric strategies to persuade the audience towards taking measures to stop the American Carnage. The use of logos, ethos, and pathos played a vital role in influencing the audience to join the historical movement whose primary objective revolves around the premise of a nation existing to serve the interest of its citizens. For example, the speaker reiterates how the American citizens are in dire need to have good schools for their kids, safe neighborhoods, and good jobs. In the speech, the speaker sets out the stage by illustrating specific scenarios in which American society has been affected by politics throughout history. Accordingly, the speech is attractive and eloquent in how the author establishes her credibility by organizing it well, evoking the audience’s emotions as well as using evidence and facts to demonstrate the problems in the American Society.

The first rhetoric choice the speaker employs involves logos. The logos appeals to reason or logic and is somehow associated with the ethos strategy since they both rely on the author’s practical applications of facts and statements in persuading the audience (Higgins 79). Significantly, logos are dependent on the author’s application of both deductive and inductive reasoning as a means to persuade the audiences. The speaker uses inductive reasoning in which they take an explicit representation of facts and evidence to conclude or generalization for an argument. For example, the precisely represents facts about the American economy and affirms the need for the government to ensure that decisions on taxes, immigration, trade, and foreign affairs must be tailored towards benefit the American families and workers.

Secondly, the author employs pathos throughout the text in which the speech emphasizes reason. Pathos involves an emotional appeal whereby the speaker appeals to the values, emotional sensibilities, and needs of the audience (Demirdöğen 189). Although the entire speech focuses on establishing reason, the speaker aims at evoking emotions in the audience as well. Similarly, the speaker uses real-life events in the context of American politics to provide the audience with a moving reality of the truth, particularly how the political systems need restructuring to improve the well-being of the American population. Accordingly, the author evokes the audiences’ emotions by stating that “we are one nation and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.”

Lastly, the speech applies ethos that entails an ethical appeal to the audience. The ethos rhetoric strategy is founded on the speaker’s reliability, credibility, and character (Demirdöğen 191). The choice of ethos supports the speaker’s credibility in stating their arguments through the use of reliable and credible sources in building their arguments as well as citing these sources appropriately. For example, in the speech, the speaker cites the Bible by illustrating to the audience about the importance of living together in unity. More so, ethos is reinforced in how the speaker organizes the speech in a way that it is easier for the audience to follow. Furthermore, ethos is revealed in how the speaker focuses on establishing a common ground with the audiences by recognizing the beliefs and values of Americans towards realizing the American dream.

In conclusion, throughout the speech, the speaker strengthens their credibility and appeal to ethos by strong evidence and arguments. This not only reinforces the speaker’s arguments but also organizes the speech in a way that persuades the audience into recognizing the nature of the issue as well as the measures they can take to solve the problem.

Works Cited

Demirdöğen, Ülkü D. “The roots of research in (political) persuasion: Ethos, Pathos, Logos and the Yale studies of persuasive communications.” International Journal of Social Inquiry 3.1 (2010): 189-201.

Higgins, Colin, and Robyn Walker. “Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental reports.” Accounting Forum. Vol. 36. No. 3. Taylor & Francis, 2012.