English Speeches Research Task1/200000000
The 3 Modes of Persuasion in Rhetoric:
Aristotle introduced the Rhetorical Triangle in his work "Rhetoric." According to Aristotle, the purpose of rhetoric is to persuade others through argument by appealing to their emotions, in order to sway their thinking. Aristotle lists three types of rhetoric: political discourse, forensic or legal persuasion and epideictic or ceremonial speaking. Each type of rhetoric employs the three elements of the rhetorical triangle, also called the Aristotelian Triad: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Ethos
refers to the character or presence of the speaker. The author must have -- or seem to have -- a credible argument and appear to be a trustworthy individual. If the argument is technical or requires expert knowledge, the speaker must establish his position as an expert. If the individual is not credible or trustworthy, the audience will not attend to his argument or be persuaded by it. The speaker must also use the appropriate tone or voice for the situation if he is to be effective in his presentation.
Ethos = Credibility, Character/Speaker
Pathos
refers to the role of an audience in a rhetorical situation. The argument must appeal to the emotions or values of the audience if it is to be effective. The rhetoric must stimulate the imagination of the reader or listener. The speaker or author must develop a sense of empathy in the audience. However, the speaker must take care not to appear manipulative or she risks losing ethos, her credibility with the audience.
Pathos = Emotions, Values/Audience
Logos
refers to the logic of the argument itself. A rhetorical speech must be structured in a clear, logical manner. If an argument is illogical and unclear, the audience will not be able to follow it. Regardless of how charismatic the speaker is, if his argument is difficult to understand, he is unlikely to persuade his listeners. A text that is logical and easily understood is far more likely to sway the audience. An illogical argument can affect the audience's perception of the speaker, decreasing his ethos, his credibility with them.
Logos= Logic, Reasoning/Text
The Rhetorical Triangle is typically represented by an equilateral triangle, suggesting that logos, ethos, and pathos should be balanced within a speech. However, which aspect(s) of the rhetorical triangle you favor in your speech depends on both the audience and the purpose of that speech.
Ethos, Pathos and Logos
Aristotle's Three Modes of Persuasion (or Appeals) in Rhetoric
Ethos Appeal to the audience's sense of honesty and/or authority
Pathos Appeal to the audience's sense of emotions
Logos Appeal to the audience's sense of logic
(1) Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word originally meaning "accustomed place", "custom, habit", equivalent to Latin mores.
Ethos forms the root of ethikos, meaning "moral, showing moral character".
To the Greeks ancient and modern, the meaning is simply "the state of being",
the inner source, the soul, the mind, and the original essence, that
shapes and forms a person or animal.
Ethos is an appeal to the authority or honesty of the speaker.
It is how well the speaker convinces the audience that he or she is qualified to speak on the particular subject. It can be done in many ways:
By being a notable figure in the field in question, such as a college professor or an executive of a company whose business is that of the subject.By having a vested interest in a matter, such as the person being related to the subject in question. By using impressive logos that shows to the audience that the speaker is knowledgeable on the topic. By appealing to a person's ethics or character.
(2) Pathos
Pathos is one of the three modes of persuasion in rhetoric (along with ethos and logos).
Pathos appeals to the audience's emotions. It is a part of Aristotle's philosophies in rhetoric. It is not to be confused with 'bathos', which is an attempt to perform in a serious, dramatic fashion that fails and ends up becoming comedy.
Pathetic events in a plot are also not to be confused with tragic events. In a tragedy, the character brings about his or her own demise, whereas those invoking pathos often occur to innocent characters, invoking unmerited grief.
Emotional appeal can be accomplished in a multitude of ways: by a metaphor or storytelling, common as a hook, by a general passion in the delivery and an overall number of emotional items in the text of the speech, or in writing. Pathos is an appeal to the audience’s ethical judgment. It can be in the form of metaphor, simile, a passionate delivery, or even a simple claim that a matter is unjust. Pathos can be particularly powerful if used well, but most speeches do not solely rely on pathos. Pathos is most effective when the author connects with an underlying value of the reader.
(3) Logos
Logos is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion. Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BCE) established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos. The sophists used the term to mean discourse, and Aristotle applied the term to rational discourse. The Stoic philosophers identified the term with the divine animating principle pervading the universe. After Judaism came under Hellenistic influence, Philo adopted the term into Jewish philosophy.
Logos is logical appeal, and the term logic is derived from it.
It is normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speaker's topic.
3 General Elements of the Rhetorical Situation
1. Occasion ('Kairos')
This general element refers to the appropriateness of the speech to the time and place. Giving a stand-up comedy routine as a speech would be appropriate in a comedy night-club, but not at a funeral, or to troops about to die in battle. Many great speakers exploit the mood and feelings of the time to express the feelings held by large sections of the community. For instance, we can say that Atwood's reflects a more widespread dissatisfaction with the gains of feminism by the 1990s. Pearson's directly references the context that inspires his speech. Thus kairos (or sensitivity to the context in which one may communicate) is central to the success of any speech.
2. Audience
The appropriateness of a speech to the audience will alter elements of the speech. Giving a highly academic speech full of technical details and complex formulae on Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Theory of Quantum Mechanics to a group of year 1 schoolchildren would not match the speech to the audience. If the same information were to be conveyed to 6 year olds, it would need to be conveyed through parable or analogy, in very simple language. Rhetorical discourse is thuscontrasted with factual, scientific or philosophical discourse in that truthful representation of thefacts is not necessarily its primary aim. In this sense, theuntruths frequently told by politicians are "a kind of truth", since a successful politician will always factor in the effect of the speech on public opinion into the construction of their speeches.
3. Decorum
The decorum is the overall impression of the speaker's delivery of a speech, and the persona therebyconstructed. Thus decorum, as the word suggests, links to the propriety of the speaker, and the respect accorded to him/herself by the audience. Decorum links closely to Delivery and Ethos (see below), as it provides guidelines from the situation as to the social, linguistic, aesthetic and ethicalaspects that need to be observed by the speaker in order for their speech to be successful. For instance, a speech made at a company's Christmas office function by a person wearing a silly hat would be in keeping with the decorum for that situation, but not for a business meeting at that same company. Dignitaries who visit foreign countries and deliver speeches often observe decorum by modifying aspects of their speech to fit the behavioural and social codes of that country, to some degree. They may even incorporate linguistic elements of that country into their speech. President John F. Kennedy's famous Berlin speech includes the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner (meaning"I am a Berliner", or "I am a person from Berlin" in German) at the climax of the speech, to highlight his support of the city and West Germany, and Europe generally against the Soviet satellite State of East Germany that was attempting to occupy Berlin during the height of the Cold War.
(from: Top Notes
5 PRINCIPLES OR CANONS OF RHETORIC
Rhetoric, as an art, has long been divided into five major categories or "canons".These were the points of pedagogical instruction for rhetoric.
Invention(Inventio)
Arrangement(disposition or(tax-is))
Style (elocutio, or lexis)
Memory (mneme)
Delivery (actio/pronuntiatio)
These categories have served both analytical and generative purposes. That is to say, they provide a template for the criticism of discourse (and orations in particular), and they give a pattern for rhetorical education. Rhetorical treatises through the centuries have been set up in light of these five categories, although memory and delivery consistently have received less attention. Rhetoric shares with another longstanding discipline, dialectic, training in invention and arrangement. When these disciplines competed, rhetoric was sometimes reduced to style alone.
Although the five canons of rhetoric describe areas of attention in rhetorical pedagogy, these should not be taken as the only educational template for the discipline of rhetoric. Treatises on rhetoric also discuss at some length the roots or sources of rhetorical ability, and specific kinds of rhetorical exercises intended to promote linguistic facility.
Invention
InventionThe process of coming to the content we are going to communicate; rhetors have debated whether this is a process of developing knowledge or not. Cicero’s idea of invention, or arguments for either side of an idea (such as benefits and disadvantages), was divided into either topics or stopping points. The most used method in the corporate workplace is topics, which is most often used to brainstorm or generate multiple ideas on a subject. For example, if asked to present a report on the current status of your sales team, a topical system of invention would allow for multiple contributions about the sales numbers, highest volume clients, number of people on the team, and so on. A stopping point approach, which Cicero describes in his De Inventione, would identify the topic which lies in the middle between two opposing ideas. Using the same idea, sales numbers, a stopping point or stasis would present both negative and positive reasons for the current sales situation. If sales are down, we would seek to describe which accounts have failed to be successful and why. If sales are up, we would want to share the success and contracts won with these accounts. Thomas Sloane (1989) believes that the process of invention is most crucial during the process ofcoming to agreement at this stopping point- the point at which the pros and cons of the subjectmust meet in the middle at an agreed-upon basis for argument- before the speech or memo can continue successfully. Without a stasis, there can be no real argument or “sides”, which render the rhetoric almost invalid (or at the very least, uninteresting.) Topio A form or strategy of argument usable in demonstrating propositions on any subject
Invention can be thought of most easily as brainstorming or “playing devil’s advocate” and seeing the negative aspects of a subject, but without invention, a subject is not worth further effort. If the sales reports show upward sales and there is no reason for discussion about issues or customer complaints, the process of invention or the discovery of valid arguments cannot continue. Furthermore, a rhetor during this stage of the five canons can use the idea of the stopping point todetermine what ideas may cause disagreement and avoid them- or they may use the impending disagreement to their advantage, to show alternative options (such as additional sales efforts) or to gain audience interest in their speech (such as discussing slow sales to prepare their audience for the delivery of more positive ideas later in the presentation.) Although discovery of possible points of disagreement or contention was first used in the Roman courtroom to argue for or against a crime, its use is equally important in determining major topics of concern at work, and major topics usually evoke major emotions or opinions- something one may want to avoid in a corporate work setting.
Some of the common topics of invention include:
•Definition (or identification of type - the most important topic)
•Division (into parts and whole)
•Comparison (similarity / Difference)
•Relationship between things (see Logos)
•Circumstances (influence of; possibility and impossibility; past facts (judicial function), future fact (legislative function))
•Testimony (evidence of and appeal to authorities, experts, witnesses, oaths, maxims and proverbs,'common sense', laws, etc.)
Arrangement
The second of Cicero’s canons, arrangement, is a six-part method of putting together compositions (either oral or written.) Arrangement The order in which the content is organized for a communication (think five-paragraph essay); genre The typical speech has the following six parts, identified by Cicero and Quintillian (Aristotle's terms are in italics):
{Appeal to Ethos]
I. Introduction (exordium)
[Appeal to Logos]
II. Statement of facts surrounding thesis (narratio, or diegesis)
III. Division (partitio)
IV. Proof(Conformatio, or pistis)
V. Refutation (Refutatio)
[Appeal to Pathos]
VI. Conclusion (Peroration, or Epilogos)
When discussing invention, I used an example of a sales report. For the canon of arrangement, we can use another corporate workplace staple, the company memo. At its most basic, the canon of arrangement is the structure by which its previous step, the invention of topic or stopping point, is arranged. Without structure, ideas can take any number of routes beyond the immediate discourse. With arrangement of ideas, they can be neatly divided into ways that best fit the rhetor’s audience and situation. A company memo that details the sale of the company might be differently arranged than one about the company picnic. Materials should be composed effectively so as to clarify the rhetor’s ideas, organize them into digestible sections, group them according to topic and constrain the speech to stay on target with the original idea. When a sales report, as one example, is arranged, it may be divided by sales region or by customer, but it should be done in a way that the audience can mentally file the information. Arrangement was the central idea to Cicero’s composition of any speech (Enos, 1985) and was key to begin the processing of ideas from simple realization and creation to concrete actions and thoughts for future research. If the end result of speech is for the audience is to be persuaded to one side or another, arrangement of the composition should be organized to ensure maximum results.
Arrangement must include the following: an introduction, a statement of facts, adivision betweenideas (if there is one), proof or evidence supporting all ideas, refutation of ideas, an optional digression, and conclusion. During the process of arrangement, a rhetor mostly uses logicalarguments to support their information, but can digress into appeals by emotion or authority if necessary. Let us use the example of a presenting an annual sales report to upper management. The topics have been introduced, and the possible negative implications of sharing sales information have been addressed. Workers who are not familiar with the sales department must be introduced to its unique characteristics (for example, goals for the year, relation to the rest of the company, and so forth.) The sales numbers are shared with the group. If there is any difference between sales regions, they should be addressed. For example- does one sales region show higher numbers due to a new client in their geographical region? Does one region have lower numbers because a star salesperson retired recently? All sales regions and their numbers should be given the same importance throughout the presentation. If there is an opportunity for question and answering, perhaps the group should interact at this point. Sharing ideas must not always end with the invention of arguments.
Style
The third canon is known as style or sometimes, expression. The signs-often words-one chooses for communication.This is an extremely influential canon which employs the rhetor’s personal style and allows them to adapt it to their topic or their audience for the most optimal result. Invention andarrangement are concerned more with what is being said, style is concerned with how it is beingsaid. In modern literature, rhetoric is often used to convey frilly or wordy passages, as in “that’s just mere rhetoric.” The reason is that Ciceronian rhetoric is actually very concerned with the style of the ideas that one has generated, though Cicero most likely never meant for the idea of “style” to be confused with overly flowery writing. Overly elaborate or ornamental writing is not always meant to disguise rhetoric, but rather to enhance it. . (Mendelson, 2001).
Style is something that is sometimes encouraged in the workplace. A speaker cannot recite ideas and expect people to listen. Instead, they must accompany their ideas with the proper expression to help convey them. Let us imagine we are in attendance at a very crucial job interview. The interviewer has presented the job outline, shared information on what a “day in the life” of the new job will entail, and you are trying to figure out if this is indeed the job for you. The interviewer can do many things to help gain your interest at this point. She may describe the job using metaphors- “Making a sale of medical equipment is like being a patient in the hospital. We have to learn everything that a patient would go through when seeking treatment.” She may appeal to your sense of professionalism by saying “This job is not for the faint of heart- I can tell you would fit right in.” Both of these are examples of style- metaphor and pathos, respectively- which could sway your decision one way or another, depending on your own style and how they mesh with your interviewer’s. When presenting a sales report, style is just as important as the numbers being presented. With or without style, the sales report will still be communicated, but not as effectively, persuasively, or emotionally as if you employed the use of style to your benefit when presenting.