A lot of this reading reminded me of Discourse and
Discourse theory and so I was able to make a lot of connections because of
that. For example, Ramage discussed that in order to persuade the audience, the
writer has to mediate to their values, beliefs, ways of thinking, ways of doing
etc.
For a quick rundown, Discourse is a particular label
that people identify with based on their values. The people who all fit under
that label are a part of a discourse community. In order to be a part of a discourse
community, they must share ways of thinking/ways of acting/value
systems/beliefs/language usages etc depending on who they are and who they are
interacting with. For example, I’d say this ENGL 450 class is a Discourse
because we all value rhetoric to some degree, use words that have the same
meaning to each other and we have a better grasp of what some phrases mean than
some people who are not in the class such as “synthesis paper” and “canons of
rhetoric.”
So, when I read things like relativism that say that it is impossible to talk to the audience without including some of their values within what we write, all I can see is Discourse Theory. Pluralism also hinted at Discourse theory because it mentioned identity. One of things I found different in that inclusion of identity is that in order to persuade the audience, you must be able to identify with them first. I didn’t actually think about that before, but I feel like it makes sense. … Even if you are not a part of someone’s discourse community, you still have to find some way to connect with the person you’re writing to otherwise they may not be able to find what you have to say as credible, logical or emotionally sound.
In addition to identity, I also found the differences between propaganda and literature regarding persuasion to be interesting. It mentioned that coercion, which is a part of propaganda, is selfish because the writer attempts to persuades in order to meet their own needs/goals rather than including the audience’s best interests at heart. I didn’t actually think of persuasion in terms of categories. I just assumed that persuasion enticed the audience to act in the way that writer wants them to.
However, now as I think about it more: Can any persuasion not be deceptive? Is any of it straight forward? I guess I was thinking of my analysis endeavors like my capstone project for over this article and how the writers have used credibility in seemingly deceiving ways. Or perhaps that’s just my interpretation because that article was relying heavily on credibility to make their argument.
But in terms of literature, I wonder if straightforward is doing stuff such as including examples that actually relate with their topic instead of using semi-related examples to support their argument. Not only does literature use things like examples to be more credible with their claims, but because they are looking to spread knowledge between themselves and their audience, is that what determines “good?” Is being coercive what “bad rhetoric” looks like?
To be more precise with my previous paragraph, does good & bad rhetoric mean propaganda vs. literature in the rhetorical lens? Would Adolf Hitler be using “bad rhetoric” when he was trying to persuade people with his speech, then?
I still like to connect intention with what determines whether rhetoric is good or bad and so I feel like Hitler’s rhetoric can be good from his perspective, but in terms of the rhetorical lens, I wonder if his rhetorical usage would be an example of “bad rhetoric.”
Lemme just take a detour here and wonder about when a person acts as result of being persuaded: Does each action come as a result of a value/knowledge change? Can we be motivated to act without changing our opinions/views? I was thinking we can because, for example, if we see a poster about a car we really wanted and we go out and buy it, are we being persuaded? If the purpose was the remind us to do something, does that count as an argument and as an act as persuasion?
In terms of argument:
So, when I read things like relativism that say that it is impossible to talk to the audience without including some of their values within what we write, all I can see is Discourse Theory. Pluralism also hinted at Discourse theory because it mentioned identity. One of things I found different in that inclusion of identity is that in order to persuade the audience, you must be able to identify with them first. I didn’t actually think about that before, but I feel like it makes sense. … Even if you are not a part of someone’s discourse community, you still have to find some way to connect with the person you’re writing to otherwise they may not be able to find what you have to say as credible, logical or emotionally sound.
In addition to identity, I also found the differences between propaganda and literature regarding persuasion to be interesting. It mentioned that coercion, which is a part of propaganda, is selfish because the writer attempts to persuades in order to meet their own needs/goals rather than including the audience’s best interests at heart. I didn’t actually think of persuasion in terms of categories. I just assumed that persuasion enticed the audience to act in the way that writer wants them to.
However, now as I think about it more: Can any persuasion not be deceptive? Is any of it straight forward? I guess I was thinking of my analysis endeavors like my capstone project for over this article and how the writers have used credibility in seemingly deceiving ways. Or perhaps that’s just my interpretation because that article was relying heavily on credibility to make their argument.
But in terms of literature, I wonder if straightforward is doing stuff such as including examples that actually relate with their topic instead of using semi-related examples to support their argument. Not only does literature use things like examples to be more credible with their claims, but because they are looking to spread knowledge between themselves and their audience, is that what determines “good?” Is being coercive what “bad rhetoric” looks like?
To be more precise with my previous paragraph, does good & bad rhetoric mean propaganda vs. literature in the rhetorical lens? Would Adolf Hitler be using “bad rhetoric” when he was trying to persuade people with his speech, then?
I still like to connect intention with what determines whether rhetoric is good or bad and so I feel like Hitler’s rhetoric can be good from his perspective, but in terms of the rhetorical lens, I wonder if his rhetorical usage would be an example of “bad rhetoric.”
Lemme just take a detour here and wonder about when a person acts as result of being persuaded: Does each action come as a result of a value/knowledge change? Can we be motivated to act without changing our opinions/views? I was thinking we can because, for example, if we see a poster about a car we really wanted and we go out and buy it, are we being persuaded? If the purpose was the remind us to do something, does that count as an argument and as an act as persuasion?
In terms of argument:
The discussion of premise was familiar to me because of my psychological statics class from a couple semesters ago. However, I had not thought about the stasis approach or defining the problem and determining the ethics behind the problem/reason before, but I found them to be interesting.
In class today I liked how we defined argument as “motive.” By defining it as “motive,” it made me want to connect it to “purpose” in which made me want to connect it to values. To be honest, I previously thought argument was just a statement that came as a product of our goals. However, as I think about it more depth, I think that our argument is constructed on the foundation of our values.
In class, I got a better idea of something: We discussed how an argument made with a “value judgement” wouldn’t win over an audience that that wanted opinions on parking. However, I think what we were getting at is that how we word our argument is dependent on who our audience is. I totally believe that we can’t remove pathos from our argument because then we’d be removing our motivation from constructing the argument to begin with. However, how we form the sentence of our argument is dependent on how our audience will interpret it and whether or not that interpretation will make them happy or sad.
Basically, I think that an argument’s idea not only was brought into existence from our values, but its outer appearance (sentence structure) depends on who our audience is, the situation and what our audience values within that particular situation.
P.S. Fellow group members, I just wanted to reiterate that Ashton has the first blog post for Monday (3/30) by 5 pm this upcoming week. :)
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