Rhetorical Strategies: The

backbone of persuasion

How would you define the words

rhetoric or rhetorical?

Classic Definitions of Rhetoric

Aristotle: Rhetoric is "the faculty of discovering
in any particular case all of the available means
of persuasion.
Cicero: Rhetoric is "speech designed to
persuade."
11IB teachers: Rhetoric describes any
speaking or writing that may be persuasive in
nature and may contain specific language
devices used to argue ones points more
effectively.

Questions to consider when reading any text

what is being expressed and how?
CONTENT WHAT
What is the purpose of the text?
What questions/topics does the text address?
Who is the intended audience?
What are the authors basic values, beliefs, and assumptions?
METHOD HOW
How does the author support his/her thesis with reason and
evidence? (What views and counterarguments or
counterevidence are included? Which are omitted?) logic
How does the author make himself seem credible to the
intended audience? ethics
How does the author make the argument emotionally
compelling? emotions
______________________________________________
*Once these questions are answered, you have formed the basis
for a closer analysis of rhetoric/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: Charged Words

Charged words (diction) are those
producing an emotional response:
even arbitrary damaging labels have the power
to turn the brightest people into meek shadows
of their potential selves (Alter para 11).
It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our
thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our
language makes it easier for us to have foolish
thoughts (Orwell 1, para 2).
If you simplify your English, you are freed from
the worst follies of orthodoxy (Orwell 5, last
para).

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).

Devices: Rhetorical Questions/Hypophora

Rhetorical questions are those whose answers are selfevident:
Many [metaphors] are used without knowledge of their
meaning: what is a rift for instance? (Orwell 2, para 2)
Hypophora is when a question is asked and immediately
answered:
Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you
struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such
absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the
present political chaos is connected with the decay of
language, and that one can probably bring about some
improvement by starting at the verbal end (Orwell 5,
last para).

Devices: Aphorism & Allusion

Aphorisms are compacted statements expressing a wise observation.
Basic example: If you cant say anything nice, dont say anything at all.
From Politics and the English Language: If thought corrupts language,
language can also corrupt thought (Orwell 4, para 5).
Allusions are references to other well-known works, people, etc.
During the height of the civil-rights struggle, one teacher showed just
how willingly children adopt new labels. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther
King Jr. was murdered, and the next day thousands of American
children went to school with a combination of misinformation and
confusion. In Riceville, Iowa, Stephen Armstrong asked his teacher,
Jane Elliott, why "they shot that king." Elliott explained that the "king"
was a man named King who was fighting against the discrimination of
"Negroes." The class of white students was confused, so Elliott offered
to show them what it might be like to experience discrimination
themselves (Alter para 9).
Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending
Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, I believe in killing off
your opponents when you can get good results by doing so (Orwell 4,
para 2).

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: Parallelism/Parallel Structure

Parallelism or parallel structure is the use of words,
phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar in
structure:
The writer either has a meaning and cannot
express it, or he inadvertently says something else,
or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words
mean anything or not (Orwell 1, para 9).
NOW YOU TRY: To begin with it has nothing to do
with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words
and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a
standard English which must never be departed
from (Orwell 5, para 2).

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.

The Grand Finale

Nowwe will link the specific rhetorical devices
(charged words, allusions, etc.) to the three rhetorical
appeals/modes of persuasion (logos, ethos, and
pathos) in order to see how writers/speakers
strategize in regard to their language.
Which rhetorical devices are likely to be used in a
logical manner and will therefore contribute to logos?
Which are likely to be used to tap into ethics or
credibility and therefore contribute to ethos?
Which are likely to be used to tap into emotions and
therefore contribute to pathos?
*Some devices may be used for more than one mode of
persuasion.

Logos strategies

Ethos strategies

Pathos strategies