rhetorical analysis essay quizlet

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Rhetorical analysis.

A rhetorical analysis considers all elements of the rhetorical situation--the audience, purpose, medium, and context--within which a communication was generated and delivered in order to make an argument about that communication. A strong rhetorical analysis will not only describe and analyze the text, but will also evaluate it; that evaluation represents your argument.

• Description: What does this text look like? Where did you find the text? Who sponsored it? What are the rhetorical appeals? (i.e. calm music in the background of a commercial establishes pathos) When was it written?
• Analysis: Why does the author incorporate these rhetorical appeals? (For example, why does the author incorporate calm music? What is the point of the pathos?) How would the reception of this text change if it were written today, as opposed to twenty years ago? What is left out of this text and why? Should there be more logos in the ad? Why?
• Evaluation: Is the text effective? Is the text ethical? What might you change about this text to make it more persuasive?

Rhetoric Defined

• Classically, "the art of persuasion".
• “About using language purposefully, in order to get something done in the world" (“What is Rhetoric").
• “Something that allows you to formulate ethical reading strategies [...] but also to invent your own responses to the world" (“What is Rhetoric").

Keywords and Concepts

Following are some basic terms and concepts (far from inclusive) that you should consider and use in a rhetorical analysis.

Rhetorical Situation

The rhetorical situation identifies the relationship among the elements of any communication--audience, author (rhetor), purpose, medium, context, and content.

Spectator, listeners, and/or readers of a performance, a speech, a reading, or printed material. Depending on the author’s/writer’s perception, an audience may be real (actually listening or reading), invoked (those to whom the writer explicitly writes) or imagined(those who the writer believes will read/hear her work) (Dept. of English)

Author/Rhetor/Speaker/Writer

The person or group of people who composed the text.

Purpose of the Author

The reason for communicating; the expected or intended outcome. 

The delivery method, which varies by type of text:

• Alphabetic Text (for example, written speech, newspaper editorial, essay, passage out of a novel, poetry)
• Images (for example, TV commercials, advertisements in magazines or on websites)
• Sound (for example, radio or TV commercials, a website advertisement, speeches)
• Multimodal texts (YouTube videos, performances, digital stories)

The time, place, public conversations surrounding the text during its original generation and delivery; the text may also be analyzed within a different context such as how an historical text would be received by its audience today.

The main idea, thesis, opinion, or belief of an argument that the author must prove. The claim should be debatable and answer the question, "What’s the point?"

The statements given to back up the claim. These can take the form of facts, data, personal experience, expert opinion, evidence from other texts or sources, emotional appeals, or other means. The more reliable and comprehensive the support, the more likely the audience is to accept the claim.

The connection, often unstated and assumed, between the claim and the supporting reason(s), or support. The warrant is the assumption that makes the claim seem plausible. More specifically, warrants are the beliefs, values, inferences and/or experiences that the writers/speakers assume they share with the audience. If the audience doesn’t share the writers'/speakers' assumptions within the text, the argument will not be effective.

Rhetorical Triangle

The elements of the rhetorical situation interact with and influence one another. In learning to write an analysis, it is thus helpful to think about the relationship among these elements within the rhetorical triangle. By doing this, writers will be able to better understand how the elements of each text come together (often overlap) to make an argument or persuade an audience.

The authority or credibility of the author. Can refer to any of the following: the actual character of the speaker/writer, the character of the writer as it is presented in a text, or as a series of ground rules/customs, which are negotiated between speaker, audience, and specific traditions or locations. The speaker must convince the audience of their credibility through the language they use and through the delivery, or embodied performance, of their speech.

Did you analyze ethos enough in your essay?

• Have you looked at what experiences or claims to authority qualify this author to speak or write?
• Have you considered the credibility and moral character of the writer/speaker?
• Have you considered the design or appearance of the text you are analyzing? Does it look professional? What can you say about the author based on the appearance of the text alone?

Emotional appeals to the audience to evoke feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow. The speaker may also want the audience to feel anger, fear, courage, love, happiness, sadness, etc.

Have you analyzed pathos enough in your essay?

• Have you considered how the author appeals to the emotions of the reader/viewer?◦How does the author establish a bond with his audience?
• How might the author change his strategy if he was trying to establish a bond with a different audience?
• Have you considered your own personal reaction to the background music of this advertisement?
• What kinds of feelings do the colors that the author uses provoke?
• What other images in the text provoke an emotional response? Why would the author include these images?

In classical rhetoric, logos is the means of persuasion by demonstration of the truth, real or apparent, the reasons or supporting information used to support a claim, the use of logic or reason to make an argument. Logos can include citing facts and statistics, historical events, and other forms of fact based evidence.

Do you analyze logos enough in your essay?

• How does the author back up his argument in this text? Does he incorporate facts, statistics, or numbers?
• Have you considered how logical the author’s argument is?
• Are the claims this author is making realistic?
• Does the author consider alternative arguments?

The right time to speak or write; advantageous, exact, or critical time; a window of time during which action is most effective. (Ex. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a dream speech was delivered at the right moment in history—in the heat of civil rights debates.)

Literally, stasis is “a stand" or a “resting place" in an argument where opponents agree on what the issue is but disagree on what to do about it. The skilled rhetor is able to move the argument away from stasis. (Ex. Rhetor A asserts that abortion is murder. Rhetor B asserts that abortion is not murder. This is the point of stasis. The argument cannot rest here indefinitely. One of these rhetors must get the argument beyond the issue of murder.)

Freshman Composition

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Rhetorical Analysis

In this essay, I write about writings of others that are published; I analyze the rhetorical situation, the author, the audience, the purpose, the techniques used to communicate with the audience, and the effects on the audience. My goal is to evaluate how the details of writing relate to each other effectively serving the writer’s intention.

            Since 2016 election of Donald Trump, we have seen the rise of far right-wing in many parts of the world. It seems that the far right-wing are winning every election everywhere around the world. The most recent shocking one is arguably the election of an overt fascist as president in Brazil.  In response to the rise of the far right across the world, there have been many attempts to figure out why this is happening and plenty of sources are available in the form of a variety of genres. This essay seeks to analyze five selected sources: newspaper article, magazine article, video lecture, journal article, and a tweet. It examines them closely for rhetorical analysis.

            The first source is a op-ed article retrieved from The New York Times. The author is a history professor at Wellesley College, which contributes to strengthen his authority as he puts forward a historical comparison of events. Throughout the world the widespread perception seems to be that Donald Trump and the right-wing have been against globalization from the onset.  Railing against this idea, the author attempts to illustrate that the true intention of the right-wing is to ruthlessly seek free finance and free trade while suppressing free migration, democracy, multilateralism and human equality (Slobodian, 2018). The author is critical of mainstream commentators and is biased for democracy and egalitarianism. The author wrote the op-ed article in The New York Times whose readership is widely considered to be the educated liberal class. The author’s choice of genre, which is a newspaper op-ed article, seems to be quite effective considering the audience of the newspaper and the seriousness of the subject the author deals with. The subject and audience here are far from suggesting other broadly popular genres or overly scholarly genres. A newspaper op-ed article adequately allows the author to put forward enough of his opinion about current affairs by openly approving some values and disapproving others. The author obviously uses negative language as he criticizes pundits and leads to a striking conclusion that demands clear choice from the audience. In the aftermath, the audience is expected to get a more straightforward understanding of various right-wing claims on globalization and what the right-wing really wishes for.

            The second source is an article retrieved from Jacobin Magazine. The magazine’s audience is broadly seen as the American left. This genre contributes to communication with quite a broad audience including activists, students, and scholars. The authors are a professor and a researcher who do their job from the leftist standpoint. They are provoked by the rise of the European far right and their gaining a sizable proportion of votes from working people. Unlike the traditional right’s disregard for the working class, recently the far right has desperately taken over left-wing talking points (Alfonso & Rennwald, 2017), embarrassing the left and posing a serious threat to democracy in general. Facing confusion and perplexity from the left, the authors attempt to expose the falsehood of the right-wing claim that they wish to improve the condition of the working class (Alfonso & Rennwald, 2017). The authors use negative language such as deception and fake socialism to describe right-wing’s concern for the working class while using mostly neutral language to deliver facts. Enumerating facts and examples, the authors sharply contrast what the right-wing says with what they do, and the audience becomes aware of the hypocrisy of the European far right-wing turning to working class voters with false solidarity.           

            The third source is a you-tube video and the speaker in this video is a philosophy professor who is known to you-tube audience largely for his analysis of logical fallacies of right-wing claims. The speaker teaches college students logic and philosophy, and youtube offers him good opportunity to reach a much broader audience.  Recently progressive politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been attacked by corporate democrats as well as right-wing media.  In this video, the speaker leads the audience through an anatomy of logical fallacies from Nancy Pelosi and other American corporate democrats about medicare for all, the green new deal, universal basic income, and what it means to work for a boss (Zero Books, 2019). Rather than using outrageous language, the speaker remains calm and continues to reveal hidden assumptions and expose types of logical fallacies which lie behind seemingly appealing right-wing claims, mocking the stupidity of those claims. This genre is very much popular with a young audience, so the choice of this genre enables the speaker to effectively communicate with the audience who feels more comfortable with visual material than with printed material. After watching this video, the audience becomes more convinced of progressive arguments and better prepared to refute serious and insidious right-wing arguments.

            The fourth source is an article from a scholarly journal. The author is a professor of political science who has been devoted to study of German politics for almost two decades. The audience is mainly academics rather than the general public. This genre is obviously a proper choice as a means of communication among scholars and researchers. The article is a response to the success of the-right wing populist party ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) in the 2017 Federal election. The case presented a profound shock to the German political settlement because under the current party system in Germany, extreme elements are hardly ever supposed to settle in the process of Federal election. In this article, the author attempts to inform the audience on the evolution of AfD and strategies it successfully employed before the 2017 Federal election.  According to the author, AfD increasingly conforms to the orthodox populist party and its electoral success implies that right-wing populism has reached the heart of Europe (Lees, 2018). However, the author does not go further than that claim, and maintains a detached and objective attitude.  The author enumerates various facts and figures to illustrate AfD’s electoral performances since 2013 that show a clear indication that AfD’s political message with more aggressive attacks on immigration resonated strongly with voters including the middle class. The author uses neutral and plain language and avoids jumping to a conclusion by referring to fact after fact. Most of his arguments are rigorously supported by evidence and facts, and he leaves the audience with a clear and balanced view of one of the recent major political events in Germany.

            The last source for rhetorical analysis is a tweet of a well-known U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio. In this tweet, Marco Rubio blames Nicholas Maduro for burning the U.S. trucks supposedly carrying tons of food and medicine into Venezuela (Rubio, 2019). The genre seems to serve well the purpose of political propaganda. It does not require any evidence or facts supporting any claim, so it can be easily used to spread fake news. The author’s purpose is obviously to damage the Venezuelan government and president Maduro. The real danger of this genre lies in the fact that facts do not matter at all. While the party attacked by the tweet is trying to respond desperately with truths, the damage has already been done. In this aspect, the author’s purpose is achieved by the act of posting the tweet. The audience is not limited to the followers of the tweets. Journalists contribute to spread the contents of the tweet to the public. The language used in this tweet is deliberately provocative. The effect of the tweet on the audience is equivocal. It strengthens some followers’ perception while upsetting others.

            In conclusion, a rhetorical analysis in this essay clarifies the rhetorical situation of each source and identifies various rhetorical elements. It also explores how effectively the author achieves the purpose of the source. Finally, it deals with the effect on the audience from rhetorical perspectives.  Of the five sources selected, three sources reveal clearly the authors’ leftist perspectives, and the fourth one does not show the author’s political preference while the last one obviously shows the political intention of the right-wing politician.

Alfonso A., & Rennwald, L. The far right’s leftist mask. Jacobin . Retrieved from https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/far-right-ukip-fn-welfare-immigration-working-class-voters/

Lees, C. (2018). The ‘Alternative for Germany’: The rise of right-wing populism at the heart of Europe . Politics, 38(3) , 295-310.

Rubio M. [marcorubio]. (2019, February 23). Each of the trucks burned by Maduro carried 20 tons of food & medicine. This is a crime & if international law means anything he must pay a high price for this. #23FAyudaHumanitaria [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1099423485082955776

Slobodian, Q. (2018, October 22). Trump, populists and the rise of right-wing globalization. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/opinion/trump-far-right-populists-globalization.html

Zero Books. (2019, March 11). The logic of green new deal, ubi, and having a boss. [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpfEkQtM8IM&t=402s

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Rhetorical Analysis: This Is Deep, but Most of Y’all Won’t Get It

These days, with so many demands on their time, it is common for students to experience stress. While there are many causes for this, schoolwork is a stressor that frequently sticks out as more significant. While there are many coping strategies people employ to control and lower their stress levels, comedy is often used. Humor is a short-term solution for managing emotions; it allows you to laugh it off and put your current problems behind you. Most of the time, the comedy that occurs is taken directly from an online meme. The meme image I selected represents two teams of people. The team of white people clinging, helping each other to push up the tree, while on the other side is a pair of Black people, one clinging over the other. It is a duo racial pictorial representation of the society in which we all drift towards the same goal, but the racial mentality defines the success of the team. The picture is inscribed with the phrase, “THIS IS DEEP, BUT MOST OF Y’ALL WON’T GET IT.” The meme represents multiple rhetorical implications of racism and the racial thinking process in controversy and provocation, cultural critique and appropriation, and corruption of the original narrative.

Fig 1:  (Who Can Interpret This Picture? – Education – Nigeria, n.d.))

The image has intentionally drawn controversy by their action, where the team of white people helps each other reach greater heights despite both of them being in the same position literally. On the other side of the same tree represents the pair of the Black people who decide to drag each other performance down by clinging on the others so that they could more in a descending at the same pace and time. Initially, the meme created an illusion of racially attributed disparity in thinking where a white person may help his colleagues to scale the higher ranks than an African American helping his fellow Black reach a higher state.

This meme appeals to pathos and represents a racially constructed criticism on the nature of people that instead of a Black man to assist their colleague by pushing them to success, they will want to compete for the same opportunities, resources, and potion while at the same time competing with the white community. It is a duo competition; however, one of the group is clouded with prejudice against each other.

Moreover, by associating with the ascribed text, “THIS IS DEEP, BUT MOST OF Y’ALL WON’T GET IT”. It appeals to Lagos where it calls critically analyzing the meaning of the text beyond superficial outlook of it. The meme brings an additional degree of intricacy by employing Lagos into the race and social dialogue in the symbolic and language use to provoke critical thinking and reflections. It compels people to highlight and assess the nature of trust and unity between the two races. In the deeper essence, it appears that a black man cannot trust his colleague will help him if he pushes him to success, and thus, he chooses to compete with him, unlike the white community team.

The analysis of my meme is related to the context of the article, for it highlights the central aspect of social and racial profiling and embraces the idea that unity and trust are lacking among the black community, making it impossible for them to catch up with the white community in various aspect of development. It brings out the impression that African America is confined to mentally structured mistrust that hinder their competition with other community.

Conclusively, the meme refers to how one thinks about unity, cultural diversity, and trust within the races while making their decisions. The image provokes the thoughts of the black community and urges them to be united and help to reach the goals they strategize to achieve. It is only in trust that the one to be helped will have the same trust.

Works Cited

Who Can Interpret This Picture? – Education – Nigeria . (n.d.). Ww.nairaland.com. Retrieved December 8, 2023, from https://ww.nairaland.com/4763485/interpret-picture

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