Persuasive Language: Ethos

• Persuasive language shapes the audience's opinions and behaviors in non-literary texts like advertisements, political speeches, and marketing materials.
• Rhetorical strategies like ethos, pathos, and logos shape the message and achieve persuasion.

Ethos (Credibility and Trustworthiness)

• Establishes the credibility of the speaker, writer, or brand.
• Creates a sense of authority, helping the audience trust the message being delivered.

Language Techniques to Build Ethos

• Professional or authoritative tone: Signals expertise via formal language and industry-specific terms.
• Citations and endorsements: Boost credibility by referencing experts or famous figures.
• Personal anecdotes or experiences: Help the speaker or brand connect with the audience and establish trust.
• Example: A medical product commercial featuring a well-known doctor or medical professional providing a testimonial, which demonstrates scientific proof.

Ethos in Academic Writing and Advertising

• Present in writing and advertising.
• Writers convey ethos through appropriate use of style, grammar, and structure.
• Adhering to predefined formats like APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian is important to give a standard means to cite and refer to sources, to facilitate academic review.
• Ethos is also established by adequately structuring the paper's theses and ideas.
• Closely associated with logos (appeal to logic), as academia is dedicated to the pursuit and advancement of knowledge and ideas.

Pathos (Emotional Appeal)

• Aims to evoke feelings such as empathy, fear, happiness, or anger.
• Used to create a strong emotional reaction, influencing decision-making and attitudes.

Language Techniques to Evoke Pathos

• Vivid imagery: Connects the audience emotionally to the message through descriptive language that appeals to the senses.
• Personal stories: Elicit empathy or emotional responses.
• Emotive language: Provokes feelings using words with strong emotional connotations (e.g., "heartbreaking," "inspiring," "devastating")."
• An advertisement for an animal shelter focuses on the sad conditions of stray animals, accompanied by pictures of them looking helpless or lonely to encourage compassion and adoption or donation.

Logos (Logical Appeal)

• Uses logical reasoning, facts, statistics, and clear arguments to persuade the audience.
• Convincing the audience through rational thought and evidence, appealing to their sense of reason.

Language Techniques to Use Logos

• Facts and statistics: Persuade the audience by providing data, research findings, or evidence.
• Cause and effect relationships: Create a logical argument by demonstrating how one event leads to another.
• Clear, structured arguments: Lead the audience to a conclusion using logical progression, facts, and examples.
• A public health campaign explaining the science behind vaccines by citing research studies showing their effectiveness and including statistics about how that reduces disease rates.

Rhetorical Strategies in Non-Literary Texts

• Employed to persuade audiences effectively, beyond ethos, pathos, and logos.

Rhetorical Strategies

• Repetition: Reinforces the message and makes it more memorable by repeating key phrases or slogans.
• Rhetorical Questions: Encourages the audience to think and align with the speaker's argument.
• Direct Address: Creates a sense of involvement and personal connection by speaking directly to the audience (using "you").
• Alliteration and Rhyme: Makes the message more catchy and memorable.
• Call to Action: Urges the audience to take immediate steps.

How Persuasive Language Shapes Audience Perception

• Directs attention to specific aspects of an argument or issue, framing the situation in a way that supports the desired outcome.

• Framing: Influences how information is understood.

• Connotation: Shapes perception through the emotional undertones of words.

• Simplicity and Clarity: Makes complex ideas more accessible and understandable.

• The strategies of ethos, pathos, and logos work by appealing to credibility, emotions, and logic.

• Non-literary texts aim to shape audience perception and drive specific behaviors.

• Understanding how these strategies work helps both creators and critics of persuasive messages navigate and analyze their effectiveness.