Winter Break Analysis
Did you witness any arguments taking place over break?
What were they about?
Were you involved?
(be sure to avoid mentioning the names of other students)
How did the participants use the appeals?
How did the participants wield rhetorical devices
(schemes and tropes)
to their advantage?
posted by D. Robin @ 1/04/2009
5 comments
5 Comments:
Over the break I witnessed a few fights. I guess they should not be considered fights, but rather insignificant quarrels. My sister and my mother argued over whether my sister could go to her friend's sleepover or not. My mother and sister both made logical arguements that contained the three appeals. The three appeals are rhetorical devices that signify the appeal to logic, ethics, or emotions. Logos appeals to logic, pathos refers to the appeal to emotion, and ethos,as it sounds, refers to ethics.
My mother started off using her high ethos by stating "I am your mother and I say 'no'!" The fact that my mother is older and raised us, proves that she is much wiser and far more credible, due to her experiences. My sister then decides to attack my mother with an appeal to my mother's emotions, pathos. "If you loved me you would let me go, so I can have fun" yells my sister. My mom looks slightly hurt, but she realizes that a rage of hormones and anger can make my sister say some pretty mean things that she truly doesn't mean. My mother combats this "attack" with logic, logos. "You have slugger's practice in the morning, if you stay up all night at a sleepover you'll be too tired for practice tomorrow." says my mother wisely. My sister can not find a thought to combat this logical explanation. She simply looks into my mother's eyes with a melancholy expression and softly states, "no I won't, i promise". My mother, seeing the sadness in my sister's eyes wants to give in. Throughout the arguement my sister only uses pathos in order to win this quarrel. My mother rushes straight towards the point and states her points clearly with logos. In the end, my mom lets my sister, Brianne, go to her friend's house in order for my sister to learn from her mistakes. the end.
I actually witnessed an argument that lasted for two days taking place over the break. I was a bystander who observed the argument as it went back and forth between two students and a teacher. Over the break, I participated in a retreat for four days, and the teachers split the students into groups of 6-8 people. Each group had a teacher and had to perform a skit on the last day of the retreat. In my group, two very outgoing students wanted the teacher to be part of the skit as a dancer. First, they addressed this idea casually, but then as the teacher refused and time progressed, they started to use pathos to convince the teacher. Making sad and frowning faces, with some whining, the persistant students continued to convince our teacher. However, the teacher returned the argument with logos. She refused and explained since she's the teacher, she has to give each student a role.
The next day, students returned and used hyperbole in the argument. They exaggerated that if the teacher does not dance in the skit, all the ideas are ruined and we're gonna lose to the other teams. The teacher would be our star and the highight of the skit. The teacher still refused, but her denial was weaker than yesterday. Her argument also became weaker as she explained she just was not fitted to dance. Students pressed on with rhetorical questions, asking, "Do you want to see our group to fail?" and many more. The time for skit came near, competition and pressure were on by the other groups, and with few more persuasion, the teacher decided to dance for our skit. :)
As often is the case, I was involved in an argument with my mom over break. Similarly to Miss Alyss’s sister, it was over a sleep over. To start with, my mother assumed that her high ethos would automatically win. She simply stated, “No.” However, I did not let her off so easy. I urged her to give me a good reason as to why not. She responded with logos arguing that I had not completed all my homework and school was just 3 days away. I responded with very poor logos saying that Sundays were for finishing up homework and I would complete it then. Naturally, my mom still said no. In panic, I began to use pathos and started to beg, hoping that my mom would feel sympathetic and perhaps empathetic. In her final response, my mom used the scheme omission. She used an asyndetom to defeat me. She said, “You don’t do your chores, you don’t do your homework, you don’t do anything. You’re not going.” And that was that.
Josh Pirahmadi
I witnessed a few arguments over break. They involved personal matters that I would not like to reveal. Let us just say it involved trust and love. I was definitely apart of the argument. The two main people in the argument I will name Person A and B. A used all three appeals, but mostly logos and pathos. A used pathos to instill guilt and make B feel like the world's biggest failure. A also used logos to uncover the mystery of calls and used logic to discover disturbing truths about B. B tried to appeal to logos, using it quite poorly, by blaming their dishonesty on a midlife crisis. A used a lot of hyperbole to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, while B used litotes to make B's actions seem less disrespectful. All in all, there was a significant amount of circumlocution between the two and the entire went round and round.
All names have been changed or omitted to protect the identities of those involved.
So I headed off to pickleball practice after school a few days ago and as soon as practice started, I could sense the tension in the air. The team sat down to discuss issues like we always do and the coaches announced that the boys would not get to play in their own matches for our giant tournament in March. They would still play in their matches with the girls and would act out skits between matches, but they would not have their own match. Then the room exploded. Ethos and pathos were flying out of every corner and crevice, but logos, or at least good logos, was noticeably absent.
“How dare you do this to us. You’re ruining our tournament,” one girl hyperbolized.
“This is my senior year and my last tournament. I should get a say in what’s going on,” ethically appealed anther.
“Well we just want what’s best for the team and we do not think that the boys will be ready for their own matches and the skits and the matches with you girls by March. They haven’t even started yet,” responded the coaches with pathos and ethos. Neither side deigned to explain why this action was or wasn’t ruining the team.
“That’s the way it has always been,” said a girl, appealing to tradition, which was ironic considering this year is her first on the team.
“No one will come now!” screamed another.
Crying ensued along with much yelling and a bit of profanity. I chose to stay out of the whole kerruffle, not because I have no opinion, but because it was futile to try to argue then. There were too many emotions and no one had any willingness to compromise at the moment. Yet the arguing continued until the coaches declared that this was not a group decision and the subject should be dropped.
“Of course it’s a group decision,” argued another girl. Neither side defined why this was or was not a group decision.
I just observed this whole argument and its many logical fallacies from a distance and sighed. This argument was wasting valuable time in which we could be practicing for our tournament.
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