Persuasion: An Introduction
Would it surprise you to know that the foundational principles that underlie professional writing actually are rooted deep in the past, as long ago as the 4th century BC -- or even further back in time?
With its emphasis on a reader-centered approach to document style and design and its focus on persuasion, professional writing in fact derives from the ancient art of discourse known as rhetoric. It is by considering how professional writing functions rhetorically that we can get at the heart of how to produce documents that best reach their audience and achieve their intended goals.
This chapter will provide you with information about rhetoric, including the different modes of persuasion, as well as teach you about how awareness of purpose and audience help you produce successful documents.
Rhetoric & Persuasion
Today, most of us are familiar only with the negative connotation of the term rhetoric. On newscasts and in the print media, we often find the speech of politicians, commentators, and public figures labeled empty rhetoric — that is, it sounds fine and important, and it even stirs its listeners or readers, but when all is said and done, it is actually filled with empty promises and hollow or meaningless words. It is like fluff wrapped up in shiny paper: the packaging is slick, but what’s inside is worthless.
Politics provides a home for accusations of empty rhetoric. During the 2016 election, for example, both presidential candidates— Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — were accused of practicing the dubious art form. For example, in “Trump “populist” mirage: How weeks of empty rhetoric shifted the GOP tax debate,” Links to an external site. Salon.com political writer Simon Maloy wrote:
We were promised “populism.” Donald Trump spent weeks and weeks foreshadowing a collision with traditional conservative and Republican economic policy, insisting that it was his intention to raise taxes on the wealthy as president. The fact that he wasn’t tanking in the polls while calling for the sacrosanct rich to face a higher tax bill was a real source of consternation for wealthy people and Republican insiders, who started to worry that Trump’s heretical views would force other candidates to follow his lead. There was a revolution a-brewin’ with 2016 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump threatening to do the unthinkable and [panicked gasp] raise his own taxes.
Turns out it was all b------t.
Clinton, too, found herself the target of accusations. In her case, however, critics used her love of pantsuits against her. According to Jennifer Rubin, author of “Hillary Clinton, an empty pantsuit?” Links to an external site.:
Recently Molly Ball observed that when Hillary Clinton “opens her mouth. . . nothing happens.” Indeed, her remarks are defined by “substancelessness” and her persona by “nothing new or surprising.” She pointed to a speech in Iowa. But there are others. Recall how she put to sleep Jewish liberals with an empty speech about Israel. Her answer to a Tom Friedman softball question about her biggest accomplishment had many words and no meaning
But Trump and Clinton are not alone in having charges of empty rhetoric aimed at them:
“Obama’s Empty Rhetoric on Education” Links to an external site. (The Atlantic)
“Ted Cruz’s Empty Rhetoric” Links to an external site. (The Atlantic)
“Mitt Romney’s Empty Obamacare-Repeal Rhetoric” Links to an external site. (The Daily Beast)
After the next “State of the Union Address” or a speech by any US President or politician at a news conference (Figure 2.1), pay attention to newscasts and scan online and in the print media. How many times can you find the term empty rhetoric used? Clearly, the phrase has become a part of our shared national (and international) vocabulary.
Regardless, though, of its popular negative connotation, in communication circles rhetoric means something very different: the art of persuasion.
In its very earliest days in the Classical Period in Greece, during the 5th century BC, rhetoric was largely a spoken skill, a means of organizing an argument so that it could be transmitted through speech logically and coherently. Oratory, the art of public speaking, was cultivated and practiced by politicians, poets, and philosophers, among others, all of whom recognized the power of language to move an audience and affect change.
The earliest practice of rhetoric established techniques that are still used today. In Book IX of Homer’s The Iliad Links to an external site., for example, when Odysseus attempts to persuade Achilles to return to battle against Troy, he utilizes a simple rhetorical maneuver: he describes how the warrior will feel if he doesn’t assist his fellow fighters (guilty), then he explains what will happen should he return (glory). “Up, then, and late though it be, save the sons of the Achaeans who faint before the fury of the Trojans,” Odysseus urges. “You will repent bitterly hereafter if you do not, for when the harm is done there will be no curing it.” [1 Links to an external site.] He continues, promising that if Achilles fight for them, the Achaeans “will honour you as a god, and you will earn great glory at their hands.”
The practice of providing a listener or reader with simple, reasonable choices — good and bad, or X if you do this and Y if you do that — is practiced by many a parent today. In fact, although the term rhetoric seems serious and elevated, the concepts to which it refers actually are ever-present in our lives.