Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for influence. Persuasion can influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviours.
Public speaking, also called oratory, is the practice of delivering speeches to a live audience. Throughout history, public speaking has held significant cultural, religious, and political importance, emphasizing the necessity of effective rhetorical skills. It allows individuals to connect with a group of people to discuss any topic. The goal as a public speaker may be to educate, teach, or influence your audience. Individuals can utilize visual aids like a slideshow, pictures, and short videos to get their point across. Whether a student, teacher, preacher, or business owner;public speaking can be relevant for those careers. Utilizing public speaking skills is essential because it builds confidence and transforms how individuals share your ideas with others.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences. Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.
The "Evil Empire" speech was a speech delivered by US President Ronald Reagan to the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983, at the height of the Cold War and the Soviet–Afghan War. In that speech, Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and as "the focus of evil in the modern world". Reagan explicitly rejected the notion that the United States and the Soviet Union were equally responsible for the Cold War and the ongoing nuclear arms race between the two nations; rather, he asserted that the conflict was a battle between good and evil.
Isocrates was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works.
An ideograph or virtue word is a word frequently used in political discourse that uses an abstract concept to develop support for political positions. Such words are usually terms that do not have a clear definition but are used to give the impression of a clear meaning. An ideograph in rhetoric often exists as a building block or simply one term or short phrase that summarizes the orientation or attitude of an ideology. Such examples notably include <liberty>, <freedom>, <democracy> and <rights>. Rhetorical critics use chevrons or angle brackets (<>) to mark off ideographs.
Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Drawing on techniques from semiotics and rhetorical analysis, visual rhetoric expands on visual literacy as it examines the structure of an image with the focus on its persuasive effects on an audience.
Ethos is a Greek word meaning 'character' that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of Orpheus exhibit this idea in a compelling way. The word's use in rhetoric is closely based on the Greek terminology used by Aristotle in his concept of the three artistic proofs or modes of persuasion alongside pathos and logos. It gives credit to the speaker, or the speaker is taking credit.
Pathos appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term most often used in rhetoric, as well as in literature, film and other narrative art.
Inventio, one of the five canons of rhetoric, is the method used for the discovery of arguments in Western rhetoric and comes from the Latin word, meaning "invention" or "discovery". Inventio is the central, indispensable canon of rhetoric, and traditionally means a systematic search for arguments.
The Rhetoric of Hitler's "Battle" is an influential essay written by Kenneth Burke in 1939 which offered a rhetorical analysis of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Much of Burke's analysis focuses on Hitler's Mein Kampf. Burke identified four tropes as specific to Hitler's rhetoric: inborn dignity, projection device, symbolic rebirth, and commercial use. Several other tropes are discussed in the essay, "Persuasion".
Christine is a 1917 novel written by Elizabeth von Arnim using the pen-name Alice Cholmondeley. It is the only novel von Arnim wrote under that name. It is written in the style of a compilation of letters from Christine, an English girl studying in Germany, to her mother in Britain. It covers the period of May–August 1914. In the letters Christine is a witness to the mood in Germany leading up World War I. The book was initially marketed as non-fiction.
Chaïm Perelman was a Belgian philosopher of Polish-Jewish origin. He was among the most important argumentation theorists of the 20th century. His chief work is the Traité de l'argumentation – la nouvelle rhétorique (1958), with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, translated into English as The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (1969).
Owing to its origin in ancient Greece and Rome, English rhetorical theory frequently employs Greek and Latin words as terms of art. This page explains commonly used rhetorical terms in alphabetical order. The brief definitions here are intended to serve as a quick reference rather than an in-depth discussion. For more information, click the terms.
The Four Minute Men were a group of volunteers authorized by United States President Woodrow Wilson to give four-minute speeches on topics given to them by the Committee on Public Information (CPI). In 1917–1918, over 750,000 speeches were given in 5,200 communities by over 75,000 accomplished orators, reaching about 400 million listeners. The topics dealt with the American war effort in the First World War and were presented during the four minutes between reels changing in movie theaters across the country. The speeches were made to be four minutes so that they could be given at town meetings, restaurants, and other places that had an audience.
Robert Lynn Ivie is an American academic known for his works on American public rhetoric concerning war and terrorism.
Metaphoric criticism is one school of rhetorical analysis used in English and speech communication studies. Scholars employing metaphoric criticism analyze texts by locating metaphors within texts and evaluating those metaphors in an effort to better understand ways in which authors appeal to their audiences.
Neo-Aristotelianism is a view of literature and rhetorical criticism propagated by the Chicago School — Ronald S. Crane, Elder Olson, Richard McKeon, Wayne Booth, and others — which means:
"A view of literature and criticism which takes a pluralistic attitude toward the history of literature and seeks to view literary works and critical theories intrinsically."
Crowd manipulation is the intentional or unwitting use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action. This practice is common to religion, politics and business and can facilitate the approval or disapproval or indifference to a person, policy, or product. The ethicality of crowd manipulation is commonly questioned.
The campaign rhetoric of Barack Obama is the rhetoric in the campaign speeches given by President of the United States, Barack Obama, between February 10, 2007, and November 5, 2008, for the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama became the 44th president after George W. Bush with running mate Joe Biden. In his campaign rhetoric, Obama used three main devices: motifs, American exceptionalism, and voicing.
