8.1 Performing a Rhetorical Analysis

The best way to come to an understanding of how the basic elements of rhetoric – ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos – work together in a particular rhetorical situation to persuade an audience is to perform a rhetorical analysis. The first step in performing a rhetorical analysis is to locate a rhetorical artifact and identify the rhetorical context it exists in.

8.1.2 Rhetorical Artifacts

8.1.2.1 Definition of a Rhetorical Artifact

A rhetorical artifact is an object that uses symbolic communication to persuade someone to act or think in a particular way. Now let’s break that down. If we first understand that rhetoric is communication designed to persuade someone to act or think in a certain way, then a rhetorical artifact is some physical manifestation that carries such a message. Think of Indiana Jones, whose job as an archeologist is to find artifacts. He wouldn’t be a very successful archeologist if he didn’t find things that could be studied in classrooms or displayed in museums. Just like archeology, rhetoric is difficult to study without objects, or artifacts that somehow embody its performance. This gets confusing, since rhetoric is something that is performed by people. So if you go to hear someone speak, then you are seeing rhetoric in action, but where is the rhetorical artifact? In the simplest terms, a rhetorical artifact is some thing that allows you to share a particular instance of rhetoric with someone. If we are talking about a speech, the artifact may be a video or audio recording of the speech, or even a transcript. If you are listening to a speaker with someone else, the rhetorical artifact could be the sound waves in the air that form words. Other rhetorical artifacts may already be in the form of an object, like a newspaper article, a street sign, or a bumper sticker. Just remember, if you are analyzing a speech, you may only have the transcript in your hand, but you can use it to analyze the actual cultural event that produced it, in the same way that Indiana Jones could analyze a forgotten culture by studying an object or artifact that was produced out of it. The key to determining what might be a rhetorical artifact is whether or not you are able to identify in it the three core elements of the rhetorical situation: Does it have an author or speaker? Does it have a purpose? Does it have an audience?

8.1.2.2 Examples of Rhetorical Artifacts

Some examples of rhetorical artifacts include magazine articles, books, posters, advertisements, movies, poems, plays, board games, street signs, slogans, speeches, artworks, you tube videos, text messages, Facebook posts, Instagram messages, song lyrics, graffiti, tattoos, t-shirts, radio broadcasts, hairstyles, brand names, company names, automobile names. Really, since any “thing” can be used as a symbol, it can also constitute a rhetorical artifact. A rock itself is not necessarily a rhetorical artifact until it is used intentionally in some symbolic way to communicate something, as it would be if a bully picked up a rock and threatened to throw it, or as the Rock of Gibraltar is now used as a symbol of the Prudential Insurance Company to convince their audience that they are a secure and stable company.

8.1.2.2.1 Analyzing a “Thing”

If you choose to analyze a “thing” like a rock or a chair, you will need to remember to consider its symbolic or rhetorical purpose rather than its practical purpose. So as tempting as it is to define the purpose of a chair as used to support someone’s butt while sitting, that is not at all the symbolic purpose. Similarly, you might be tempted to identify the builder of the chair as the author, but that won’t necessarily be the case, unless the chair was purposefully designed by its builder to communicate something. The audience, following the same reasoning, is not necessarily the person who is going to use the chair to sit in. Until you can figure out what a chair is symbolizing – what it means – it is still just a chair, and not yet a rhetorical artifact.

8.1.2.2.2 Analyzing a Film or Television Show

Certainly films by themselves are rhetorical artifacts, but it is often more difficult to parse out what the film as a whole intends to persuade its audience of than it is to examine individual scenes within the film as kind of mini-rhetorical situations. One reason this is true is because on its surface, the purpose of a film seems to be to entertain rather than to persuade. It takes a rather lengthy analysis for figure out what the film wants to persuade its audience of, although as Andrea Lunsford points out, it is possible because at bottom “everything’s an argument.”^[1] For a short rhetorical analysis, it is usually more fruitful to analyze a particular scene in terms of what a particular character’s purpose, audience, and message is, rather than what Warner Brothers hopes to accomplish with a film as a whole. For instance, in Gaston’s Speech to the Villagers, it becomes much more interesting to consider his purpose, to kill the beast, and his audience, the villagers, rather than Disney’s purpose and audience.

8.2 Writing the Rhetorical Analysis

Use the following general structure to posit that the rhetorical artifact or text analyzed either 1) achieves its purpose for the intended audience, 2) does not achieve its purpose for the intended audience, or 3) partially achieves its purpose for the intended audience:

• Begin with a summary of the argument or claim the rhetorical artifact/text is making. Provide a brief overview of the rhetorical context. Who is the speaker? Who is the audience? What is the purpose?
• Next, write a thesis statement that clearly and explicitly states in one sentence how/why the rhetorical text or artifact does/does not successfully achieve its purpose for its intended audience. The successful thesis statement will be specific about what rhetorical strategies contribute to or detract from the success or failure of the message. You can use the following thesis statement as a model for your own:

• Following the “map” you have outlined in your thesis statement, use the next several paragraphs to elaborate on exactly how the rhetorical artifact uses ethos, pathos, logos, and/or kairos, either singly or in combination, to achieve its purpose. Here you can discuss how the strategies the author chose might have worked differently for different audiences. In terms of logos, if you can identify any logical fallacies that might have weakened the argument, or any reasoning that might have improved it, this is a good place to mention this.
• Conclude with a summary of your main points and the implications they have for how to most effectively construct a persuasive argument.

Remember that the overarching goal of this analysis is to examine how the rhetorical appeals are used to persuade so you can then apply what you learn in your own writing. If you find your artifact is ineffective or unsuccessful, identifying why can help you avoid the same pitfalls. On the other hand, if you see that logos or another rhetorical appeal is used successfully and can explain why, you can then apply that understanding to future writing projects.