Donald Trump uses the rhetorical techniques, pathos, ethos, and logos, to make his speech effective. In his presidential speech, Trump uses a lot of facts and statistics, which show the use of logos. An example of his use of logos is when he says, "Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities." By using logos, he is able to use reasoning to show the problems of the United States. Showing the issues of our country can convince the audience that a need for a change is necessary, which is how Trump gets his audience to support him. Trump uses pathos to evoke and appeal to the sense of fear. For example, he states "One such border-crosser...ended the life of an innocent young girl." By stating this, he makes the audience feel sad for the girl who lost her life and made the people hate border-crossers. This statement can easily appeal to parents because it makes them fear that this tragic event might happen to their own child. His ethos is shown when he mentions how he made billions of dollars in business, which can cause people to trust him more when he says that he can make our country rich again. By using rhetorical techniques, Trump's speech is very effective.
Hey Joyce! So I read through your interesting and well-developed response to Donald Trump's RNC speech. It is also very concentrated on reasons related to what we have covered in AP English Langauge, in other words your response revolves around Donald Trump's usage of ethos, pathos, and logos. I do agree with you that Trump used all three rhetorical strategies, but and here comes the but, when you stated ''Trump's speech is very effective'' I would have to disagree. The reason for my disagreement is that Trump uses these facts as a part of his logos for the wrong reasons. Trump uses these facts to expose the wrongdoings of America and to basically call everything that America has done up until now a mistake. In my eyes the president is selected to stand as the symbol for our country and not to imply that our actions are not the best that we can be.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, when you said that exposing the problems of our country will cause the need for a change and that will get people to support him, I'd like to disagree because it is not necessarily true. This is because some American citizens will take the absolute necessity for a change the wrong way. They might take it as I did, that America isn't the best and that will cause some to lose their pride in their country. This sense of patriotism will soon decrease in more of our citizens and as I said in my own blog post about this topic, ''Once a nation loses its citizens, the nation loses itself.'' So, this technique that he is using to gain supporters may or may not work, it can go both ways but I take it as it won't go in the way Trump desires. I understand that change is a good thing and some changes do need to be made to this country like addressing the growing gap between whites and blacks in terms of their arrest rates and murder rates. But he is also using these facts to instill fear in our people (as you stated and many others as well) and to expose our problems. What I'm trying to say is that using fear to show our problems is not the most effective method. There are other ways to show that changes need to be made and the other ways are shown by Hillary Clinton's speech. Since we have interesting and opposite views, a thought provoking question came to me: do we want a fear instilling president or a president who gives off a sense of compromise, courage, and strength? Also a quote that sums up my point fairly well, ''Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself'' (JFK).