Unit 1 Flashcards
Rhetoric
The art of using words effectively in speaking or writing: esp, now, the art of prose composition (writing essays/papers, ect.)
Robert De Nobili
- A young Italian aristocrat who gave up his title and wealth to become a Jesuit missionary in Goa
- Learned that the people in Goa were not converting because the other missionaries were not respecting the people’s main values
- Robert started to dress, eat, and preach to the people in India and gained Respect from the people
- The respect made the people like him and showed that to get people to follow you, you need to kind and respectful to them
Communication
Is more than a message because the speaker and the audience are essential components
Is a message effect communication
A message alone is not effective communication because you have to convince your audience that you are worth listening to
The Rhetoric Triangle
- All three elements (speaker, subject, and audience) are necessary for communication to work
- All three elements are in a dynamic relationship
- If you talk to little kids your voice would speaking changes
Persuasive Appeals
- The Greeks recognized that the rhetorical triangles is key to understanding how audience is persuaded
- Aristotle defined rhetoric: the art of finding the best available means of persuasion in any situation
- 3 different appeals
Logos
Appeals to logic, reasoning, and evidence
Ethos
Appeals based on the trustworthiness of the speaker
Pathos
Appeals to the emotions and deepest held values of the audience
The Larger Context
- The rhetorical triangle is useful but is missing a sense of how the participants happen to be talking about that particular subject at that time in that place
- Many people don’t think about cultural traditions when they are around people of their own culture, but we are aware of the historical dimensions of particular subjects for particular audience
Rhetorical Situations
-Communication is never a neutral situation
The speaker, subject, and audience each bring histories to a particular rhetorical situation
the Writing Situation
The rhetorical situation changed from speaking to writing; more complex
- Writing changed the dynamics of the rhetorical triangle because usually writer and reader are separated by time and space
- Writing changed the nature of the audience and the nature of the speaker in many ways
Simple Audience
When you can easily characterize the knowledge and attitudes of your audience
Multiple Audience
When people with different back rounds read the same document for different reasons
-Need to consider different levels of knowledge of your subject, and different attitudes to you an the topic you are writing about
Audience Knowledge
- Critical to what you write is your audience’s knowledge of your subject
- If the audience is unfamiliar with your subject you should give background information and connect you new information to something the reader already knows
Levels of Expertise in you Audience
- If you are writing for experts you can use technical language
- If you are unsure, you may have to explain technical terms
- If your audience knows nothing about your subject, you need to convince them they should be interested