Rhetorical analysis

started page

• todo:
  • logical fallacies or link to page

• see also Social Studies skills

Rhetorical situation = what the author is trying to say to the reader components purpose argument audience context >> other?

See Rhetorical devices

Logos, Pathos & Ethos

logos: logic, facts, statistics logos = logic ("word" ... "names" = things are what they are)

pathos = emotion, pity

ethos > crediblity

Figurative v. literal

• definitions:
  • analogy
  • figurative
  • literal
  • metaphor
• dual use of figurative & literal language
  • Virginia Woolfe example from "Three Guineas," 1938:

Close at hand is a bridge over the River Thames, an admirable vantage ground for us to make a survey. The river flows beneath; barges pass, laden with timber, bursting with corn; there on one side are the domes and spires of the city; on the other, Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. It is a place to stand on by the hour, dreaming. But not now. Now we are pressed for time. Now we are here to consider facts; now we must fix our eyes upon the procession—the procession of the sons of educated men.

• Woolfe contrasts the literal with figurative meanings of a bridge
  • a "bridge" connects separated things
    • in this figurative sense, the bride on which the narrator (speaking for English women) stands is one that "bridges" the gulf (separation) between the professions of men and the traditional roles of women
    • in the literal sense, the narrator is "literally" standing on a bridge overlooking business and government places and activities, which are run by "educated men."
• Woolf's meaning is thus dual: the bridge crosses both a physical and figurate gap between the roles of men and women.
• see also Ogden Nash: Very Like a Whale for criticism of poetical metaphor