Rhetorical Analysis by Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine

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Rhetorical Analysisby Richard Johnson-Sheehan
and Charles Paine

• Purpose to determine how and why texts are
  influential, or not.
• Advertisers, marketing analysts, and public
  relations agents use rhetorical analyses to
  understand how well their messages are
  influencing target audiences and the general
  public.
• Political scientists and consultants use it to
  determine which ideas and strategies will be most
  persuasive to voters and consumers.
• Historians and rhetoricians use it to study
  historic speeches and documents to understand how
  and why they were influential in their day and
  perhaps still influential today.

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• The ultimate objective to show why a text was
  effective or persuasive.
• By studying texts closely, we can learn how
  writers and speakers sway others and how we can
  be more persuasive ourselves.
• Any time you are asked to analyze a nonfiction
  text, you are most likely writing a rhetorical
  analysis.
• In your career, your supervisors may ask you to
  closely analyze your organizations market
  materials and messages to determine their
  effectiveness.
• Thus, these critiques are rhetorical analyses,
  too.

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• A rhetorical analysis requires you to step back
  from a text and consider it from multiple
  perspectives.
• Writing a rhetorical nalysis can give you a
  heightened awareness of a text and better
  appreciation of what the author accomplished.
• Understanding how communication works or fails to
  work is a worthy goal by itself, but rhetorical
  analysis has other benefits.

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• It enables you to think about a text in more
  depth.
• To help you better understand the arguments the
  artifact makes
• To appreciate how the artifact was put together.
• In turn, this knowledge helps you in writing your
  own texts.
• You have a much better sense of what has been
  said and written about your subject, and where
  you have opportunities to contribute your own
  ideas.

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Analyze the Context and the Text

• Select a text that has significance for you,
  either because it was important when it was
  written or it is about a subject that is
  important to you.
• Think of your analysis as running on a continuum
  between considering the context (the relationship
  between the piece of writing or speaking and the
  larger society surrounding it) and the text
  itself (what it is about and how it is designed.

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We can think of the context, which lies at one
end of the continuum, in two senses

• First, the immediate context refers to where
  the text was written and read or heard.
• For example, Abraham Lincoln delivered his
  10-sentence, 272-word Gettysburg Address on
  November 19, 1863, at the dedication ceremony of
  a national cemetery, where he followed a speaker
  who had talked for two hours.

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• Second, the broader context refers to the larger
  cultural and historical circumstances in which a
  text is produced and read.
• The broader context was, of course, the Civil
  War, which had taken thousands of lives and was
  far from over when Lincoln spoke.
• Lincolns brief remarks have been immortalized
  because he could envision an end to the war and a
  healing process.

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• At the other end of the continuum lies the text
  itself. We can consider a text as if it were a
  piece in a museum, where we closely scrutinize
  it.
• For example, if you look carefully at the
  language of the Gettysburg Address, youll begin
  to appreciate Lincolns tactics and skill.
• He says of his purpose We have come to
  dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
  resting place for those who here gave their lives
  that the nation might live.

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• But then he immediately turns this purpose on its
  head But in a larger sense, we can not
  dedicatewe can not consecratewe can not
  hallowthis sacred ground. The brave men, living
  and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated
  it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
• Lincolns words become powerful because they defy
  expectation we cannot consecrate the field
  because the field is already consecrated.

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• Lincoln does not once refer to the enemy in his
  address. Instead he says, The brave men, living
  and dead, who struggled here.
• Even though the cemetery was a burying ground for
  Union soldiers, Lincolns language invokes the
  heroism and sacrifice of both sides.

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• Often in the back and forth movement between text
  and context, we gain surprising insights about
  how a text achieves certain effects.
• These questions will help you get started in
  composing a rhetorical analysis

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Analyze the Immediate Context

• Examine the author
• What is the authors purpose To change beliefs?
  To inspire action? To teach about a subject? To
  praise or blame? To amuse?
• How did the author come to this subject?
• What else did the author write?

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Analyze the Immediate Context (continued)

• Examine the audience
• Who was the intended audience?
• What were their attitudes and beliefs about the
  subject?
• What were their attitudes and beliefs about the
  author?
• What does the author assume about the audience?

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Analyze the Broader Context

• Examine the larger conversation
• Why did this text appear at this particular time?
• What else has been said or written about the
  subject?
• What was going on at the time that influenced
  this text?

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Analyze the Broader Context (continued)

• Examine the larger society
• What social, political, and economic influences
  can you find in the text?

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Analyze the Text

• Examine the kind of text
• What kind of text is it speech? Essay?
  Letter? Editorial? Advertisement?
• What is the medium print? Web site? Voice
  recording?

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Analyze Text (continued)

• Summarize the content
• What is the authors main claim or main idea?
• How is the main claim or main idea supported?
• How is the text organized?
• Examine the appeals
• Ethos How does the author represent
  him/herself? How does the author build or fail
  to build trust?
• Logos What kinds of facts and evidence does the
  author use?
• Pathos How does the author appeal to values
  shared with the audience?

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Analyze the Text (continued)

• Examine the language and style
• Is the style formal? Informal? Academic?
• Does the author use humor or satire?
• What metaphors are used?

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Organize and Write a Rhetorical Analysis

• Before you write
• Take stock of your initial analysis
• If your selected text isnt working for the
  assignment, find one that works better.
• Look at your notes on the author, the audience,
  the circumstances of original publication or
  delivery, what other texts the author was
  responding to, and what else was going on at the
  time.
• Spend some time think about how to organize your
  analysis.

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Organize and Write An Analysis (continued)

• Think about your readers
• How much do readers know about your text? The
  author? The events surrounding the text? Other
  texts like it?
• What will readers gain from reading your analysis?

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Write an Introduction

• Begin your analysis by giving the necessary
  background
• Inform your readers about the author and why the
  author selected this particular topic.
• Tell readers about the original audience and the
  conversation about the topic that was going on at
  the time the text was written.
• Make a claim
• Make a claim about how the text you are analyzing
  used rhetoric for particular purposes.

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Organize and Write the Body of Your Paper

• Support your claim with your detailed analysis of
  the text and context
• Give examples from the text to show how the
  authors builds credibility with the audience,
  appeals to their values and beliefs, and
  convinces them with facts and evidence.
• Analyze the authors style, tone, and language,
  including metaphors.
• Analyze how the author responded to the immediate
  context and to the broader context.

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Organize the body of your paper (continued)

• This is a researched paper. Therefore, you must
  find additional sources to support your claim
• Apply theories, viewpoints, argumentative
  strategies (that weve learned about this
  semester) from other writers, experts, and
  examples, and from other similar texts to support
  your claim.
• Use 3-5 credible sources. Use APA in text and as
  a Reference Page.

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Write a Conclusion

• End with more than a summary
• Draw larger implications from your analysis.
• End with a vivid example from the text.
• Finally, revise, revise, revise!
• Evaluate your draft
• Make sure your analysis meets the requirements of
  the assignment.
• Consider where you might provide more information
  about the context.
• Consider where you might provide more evidence
  supporting your claim about the text.
• When you have finished revising, edit and
  proofread carefully.

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Class Exercise

• Public speeches are usually intended to persuade.
  You can find many examples of public speeches on
  the Web. Many politically oriented Web sites
  contain transcripts of speeches and often the
  audio and video. (For example, go to
  www.whitehouse.gov for speeches by the president,
  or to a history site, such as the History
  Channel, for other famous speeches).
• Select a speech to analyze and answer the
  following questions.
• 1. What is the rhetorical purpose? What did the
  speech indent to achieve?
• 2. Where was the speech given? How does the
  speaker connect with the beliefs and attitudes
  of the audience?
• 3. What appeals does the speech rely upon the
  rational appeal (logs) the emotional appeal
  (pathos), or the ethical appeal (ethos)?
• 4. How is the speech organized?
• 5. How formal or informal is the style? Is
  humor used?
• 6. Does the speaker use any metaphors and for
  what purpose?
• When you have completed your analysis, formulate
  a thesis about the speech.