AP Lang & Comp

1. Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis AP Lang & Comp

2. Aristotle’ Rhetorical Triangle • Rhetor • Speaker • Writer Rhetoric, according to Aristotle was the “art of making truth effective.” Audience Subject/Purpose Plato taught that rhetoric could be dangerous in the hands of a salesman... or worse, a politician.

3. Persona (The “character” that the rhetorassumes) rhetor A persona comes loaded with cultural connotations and values. A persona is selected to appeal to the intended audience. audience

4. Audience: The group to whom the rhetor is directing the message.

5. Purpose: Intention of the rhetor • Why is this rhetor presenting this message to this audience?

6. Exigency: • Context when the message was given. • Occasion of the message in temporal and cultural terms. • The given circumstances of the message’s time and place, culturally speaking. • Zeitgeist (German): the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time • From the notion that "no man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit“ (Magee, Glenn. The Hegel Dictionary, 2011). • Connotation: The sense of the spirit of the times • Apply generally (the 60’s, man) • Or specifically (summer at 15th street) • *From Philospher Georg Hegel who believed that art reflected, by its very nature, the time of the culture in which it is created.

7. The three appeals

8. Organization and Arrangement Think of a museum. Organization is like the building that will house the works. Arrangement is like the placement of the works on the inside.

9. Diction, imagery, figurative language, syntax

10. Tone suggests The rhetor’s attitude toward the subject.