The article titled “What Is Rhetoric?” addresses the fact that rhetoric shapes almost all uses of language and is not merely used to trick an audience. Being persuasive in an argument is a big part of clearly stating your messase, however, after reading the article and viewing the presidential campaign ads on YouTube it became clear to me that basically all persuasion is a form of trickery because you want the audience to believe your side of the argument.
The different types of rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, logos, and stylistic appeal influence one another and operate collectively in speaking/writing. The ethos, or ethical appeal was most obvious in the Bill Clinton campaign ad. Lots of sources of credibility were listed which makes the viewer believe that Bill must be very well qualified for the position. The JFK ad also uses a source of credibility, the current President at that time, Eisenhower, to support his persuasive argument against Nixon.
Pathos, or pathetic appeal, was the main form of persuasion in both the Ronald Regan ad and the Bush ads. These ads were demonstrating that the candidates are connected with everyday American people and they share values such as integrity, patriotism, doing what is best for the country, etc. Both are supposed to touch the emotions of the audience.
Logos, or logical appeal, of the campaign ads was clearly protrayed in Bill Clinton’s ad as being the support of his opinions by highly respected others. Other ads also showed many uses of logos by speaking with soldiers, showing the president hard at work, connecting with the people, etc.
All ads use stylistic appeal to target people who will be voting in the election through familiar and symbolic images, dramatic music, etc.
Posted by cdadas on September 24, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Well done! At the end you mention the use of images and music–how do they relate to the rhetorical appeals? I would encourage you to try and divorce rhetoric from trickery. In fact, rhetoric is not always about persuaion. If we think of it as a way to communicate with others, we can see that we are not always trying to persuade. I would argue that everything is rhetoric, even an outfit that we wear. It makes a statement about how we want to communicate with others, right?