Ethos

Ethos

• Appeals to the character / credibility of the speaker / writer.

• Invented ethos (how the rhetor constructs her ethos through the words she uses)

• Situated ethos (the preconceptions that the audience has about the rhetor, the power that the rhetor has / doesn’t have)

Types of Ethical Appeal

• Demonstrating knowledge / expertise about the issue (doing the homework)

• Establish “good character” (showing that you are moral and trustworthy)

• Building Goodwill (convincing the audience that you have their best interests at heart, that you understand and appreciate their point of view)

Identification

"you persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, indentifying your ways with his.”

(Kenneth Burke)

Analyzing Voice I

• Does the rhetor employ first, second, and/or third person discourse?

• What kind of vocabulary does the rhetor employ (monosyllabic versus polysyllabic)?

• Does the rhetor qualify her claims (with word such as “might” or “some”)?

Analyzing Voice II

• Does the rhetor employ more active or passive voice? (active: the boy threw the ball; passive: the ball was thrown)

• Does the rhetor establish strong or weak identification with the audience?

Effects of Rhetorical Distance

Intimate (close) distance: greater identification,

greater emotional impact, lesser sense of

“objectivity” or “expertise”

Formal (removed) distance: less identification,

less emotional impact, but greater sense of

“objectivity” or “expertise”

Appropriate Level of Distance

• Depends on audience, purpose, and genre conventions

• Depends on power structures and social norms governing the rhetorical situation