I’m sure many of us by now have heard preachers often found outside of Willard, the Hub, or somewhere downtown and seen the white “The World is Ending” van with its bullhorn accompanied speaker creeping up Shortlidge. A few weeks ago I was waiting to cross College Ave when I noticed a man waving his Bible around and shouting, “SINNERS will go to hell...UNBELIEVERS will go to hell...WHORES will go to hell…” As I was watching him, he paused and we made brief eye contact. It was cold--one of those days where I often feel like I’m fighting a losing battle against the wind and oh! there goes my scarf again--so I looked at him and said, “Aren’t you cold?” He glared at me. “YOU will go to hell.”
Now, I’m not here to blast anyone’s personal beliefs, but when I think about it, this man used rhetoric in the least effective way I can possibly imagine. He wasn’t talking to any of us, but rather was talking (or shouting) at us. He did make an appeal towards pathos, probably hoping to instill in us a fear of hell, but this also proved to be unsuccessful, at least for me, because his use of ethos was nonexistent. All I could think of as he told everyone around him that they were going to hell was Who is he to tell us this? How do I know how morally upright this man is? Maybe he is a sinner, an unbeliever, a whore. The very fact that he was screaming at all of us simply hurt his ethos.
We’ve also learned about how important it is to connect with your audience. After all, if your audience isn’t listening to you, what’s the point? This is another mistake this preacher made. He didn’t try to create any sort of closeness with his “audience;” if anything, he pushed them even farther away by speaking down to them and acting condescending. In today’s world, religion can be such a hot topic, and one must be careful how they phrase their words if they want to convince someone. Perhaps his words will hold sway over someone else, but for me, “You’re going to hell” just doesn’t cut it.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
"Hi, My Name is Rayna and Blah Blah Blah...?"
After a string of Christmas shopping, back to back (to back) birthdays, textbook buying, and all around spending, it's come to my attention in the past few months that...I've become the typical broke college student.
It turns out I'm not so good at job hunting (Sure, I went and got all these applications- that's work enough, so I think I'll just let them sit on my desk until I feel like filling them out, and what?! They're not hiring anymore??) but after this happened numerous times, I finally forced myself to get an application, fill it out, and turn it in the next day. You can hold your applause.
My job at Penn State Lion Line seems pretty simple; just call Penn State Alumni and chat with them, segueing into a request for not a donation, but a “gift.” I’ve realized that much of my job centers around rhetoric. It isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and saying, “Hi I’m Rayna, wanna give Penn State some money?” Lion Line stresses the importance of being able to connect to your audience--though there is a general gist of what we say to each person, every conversation with every alumni will be different, because they’ll respond in different ways, and we have to use what they say to us to determine the best way to use that to ask for money.
For example, if I ask someone what they studied at Penn State, they might say they studied Psychology, found in the College of Liberal Arts. As a History major, I can respond by saying I’m a Liberal Arts major as well, going off of what I know and like about it (establishing ethos). If the conversation moves onto Penn State overall, I can talk about what a great school Penn State is, and how I love all the opportunities that are offered, and the reason I could come is because I got a scholarship from alumni and am so grateful to them for their generosity (establishing pathos). If this fails to work, I can move on to logos--“Did you know that last year over 70,000 alumni contributed to Penn State, ranking us as the leading university in the number of alumni donors?”
In this sense, rhetoric for my job is really important; from what we choose to say and how we say it to what specific words we should and shouldn’t use. As we learned today in class, our goal is to establish a relationship with our audience, closing the distance between us.
It turns out I'm not so good at job hunting (Sure, I went and got all these applications- that's work enough, so I think I'll just let them sit on my desk until I feel like filling them out, and what?! They're not hiring anymore??) but after this happened numerous times, I finally forced myself to get an application, fill it out, and turn it in the next day. You can hold your applause.
My job at Penn State Lion Line seems pretty simple; just call Penn State Alumni and chat with them, segueing into a request for not a donation, but a “gift.” I’ve realized that much of my job centers around rhetoric. It isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and saying, “Hi I’m Rayna, wanna give Penn State some money?” Lion Line stresses the importance of being able to connect to your audience--though there is a general gist of what we say to each person, every conversation with every alumni will be different, because they’ll respond in different ways, and we have to use what they say to us to determine the best way to use that to ask for money.
For example, if I ask someone what they studied at Penn State, they might say they studied Psychology, found in the College of Liberal Arts. As a History major, I can respond by saying I’m a Liberal Arts major as well, going off of what I know and like about it (establishing ethos). If the conversation moves onto Penn State overall, I can talk about what a great school Penn State is, and how I love all the opportunities that are offered, and the reason I could come is because I got a scholarship from alumni and am so grateful to them for their generosity (establishing pathos). If this fails to work, I can move on to logos--“Did you know that last year over 70,000 alumni contributed to Penn State, ranking us as the leading university in the number of alumni donors?”
In this sense, rhetoric for my job is really important; from what we choose to say and how we say it to what specific words we should and shouldn’t use. As we learned today in class, our goal is to establish a relationship with our audience, closing the distance between us.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Those Little Things...
Everyone knows by now that President Barack Obama visited Penn State today, urging for a new and more efficient energy plan. Though I would have jumped at the opportunity to see the President speak, his visit coincided with Chinese New Year; a day I have always spent in New York, visiting family.
And so as I spent the day here in Manhattan, I also spent the day experiencing Obama's visit vicariously through Facebook, as friends posted statuses and uploaded pictures. Some expressed dismay and outright indignation at the inconvenience of getting to class, while others e-screamed their excitement at such an event. In the multitude of Obama-related social networking information, one status in particular made me do a double-take.
“Did he really just say “Nittaly Lions” again?”
Apparently back in 2008, Obama referred to us Nittany Lions as the “Nittaly Lions.” At a state school renowned for its school spirit, this undoubtedly caused annoyance if not anger-probably now even more so if Obama really did say it again today. It’s interesting to note that after three years and out of Obama’s whole speech today, this is the one thing the student remembered chose to comment on. This made me realize how much the effect of your message depends so much on how you present it to your audience.
We’ve learned how important it is to be able to connect with your audience--after all, you may have the best speech with the most convincing arguments, but if you can’t adequately convey this to someone what good will it do? This one incident, this one tiny slip of tongue made me realize how, in presenting and using rhetoric, everything counts. It doesn’t do to simply look presentable and speak fluidly alone if your audience is invested in what you are saying (though they still are essential in establishing ethos). On one hand, in the grand scheme of things, the one letter difference really doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, to some people, this simple matter of knowing where you are speaking and knowing what is important to you audience can make or break a speaker’s ethos. It obviously broke it for this student found, who found it most important to comment on this one slip of tongue, especially since it happened twice, rather than anything Obama had on his agenda. For me though, I’d say we’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes. As long as Obama knows more about his energy efficiency plan than he does about the Nittany Lions, I’d say we can brush off his little mistake.
And so as I spent the day here in Manhattan, I also spent the day experiencing Obama's visit vicariously through Facebook, as friends posted statuses and uploaded pictures. Some expressed dismay and outright indignation at the inconvenience of getting to class, while others e-screamed their excitement at such an event. In the multitude of Obama-related social networking information, one status in particular made me do a double-take.
“Did he really just say “Nittaly Lions” again?”
Apparently back in 2008, Obama referred to us Nittany Lions as the “Nittaly Lions.” At a state school renowned for its school spirit, this undoubtedly caused annoyance if not anger-probably now even more so if Obama really did say it again today. It’s interesting to note that after three years and out of Obama’s whole speech today, this is the one thing the student remembered chose to comment on. This made me realize how much the effect of your message depends so much on how you present it to your audience.
We’ve learned how important it is to be able to connect with your audience--after all, you may have the best speech with the most convincing arguments, but if you can’t adequately convey this to someone what good will it do? This one incident, this one tiny slip of tongue made me realize how, in presenting and using rhetoric, everything counts. It doesn’t do to simply look presentable and speak fluidly alone if your audience is invested in what you are saying (though they still are essential in establishing ethos). On one hand, in the grand scheme of things, the one letter difference really doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, to some people, this simple matter of knowing where you are speaking and knowing what is important to you audience can make or break a speaker’s ethos. It obviously broke it for this student found, who found it most important to comment on this one slip of tongue, especially since it happened twice, rather than anything Obama had on his agenda. For me though, I’d say we’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes. As long as Obama knows more about his energy efficiency plan than he does about the Nittany Lions, I’d say we can brush off his little mistake.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
This I Believe Podcast
Here is the podcast version of my belief statement, "I believe in saying "Merry Christmas""
Friday, January 28, 2011
Rhetoric: Available Everywhere
I used to check my mail everyday. I loved finagling the knobs to the right combination and peering into the little window of my mailbox. I soon realized though, that the girl who lived in my room last year found it necessary to subscribe to a slew of monthly newsletters and though she moved on, they did not.
Usually, upon the arrival of said subscriptions, I'll roll my eyes in annoyance and drop the magazines in the "Mixed Office Paper" bin. Sometimes though, something, usually a picture, on the cover will catch even my own wandering attention, whether it’s Delia’s newest sweater collection, or Alloy’s sale section. Which leads me to think: is rhetoric really so prevalent that it seeps into even the most seemingly trivial pages of a fashion magazine?
While rhetoric may be considered the study of effective language, I believe that advertisements also employ visual rhetoric to draw us in. Pictures can just as easily use pathos, logos, and ethos to convey meaning- after all, most ads are largely picture-based. There's a reason swimming suit ads always picture incredibly skinny, beautiful girls.
Take for example, this ad. Arezzo may be trying to sell bathing suits, but their use of pathos in this sells so much more. When I look at this ad I see not only swimming suits, but girls oozing with mystery, glamour and sex appeal. As with most ads, Arezzo is trying to displace these feelings upon us- buy this swimming suit, and feel sexy.
But if you look deeper, you’ll find more hidden elements of rhetoric. The ad also displays a sort of professional ethos. Everything about the ad is sleek, slim, and glossy. The primary colors are blue, white, and black and combine to showcase a sense of professionalism and class. The ad thus draws on ethos to prove to us that they are an upper class brand and pathos to convince us to buy the suits so that we can live this life. So while we may think we've seen the obvious, in your face rhetoric, there's always a chance that if you dig deeper, you'll find even more variations.
Usually, upon the arrival of said subscriptions, I'll roll my eyes in annoyance and drop the magazines in the "Mixed Office Paper" bin. Sometimes though, something, usually a picture, on the cover will catch even my own wandering attention, whether it’s Delia’s newest sweater collection, or Alloy’s sale section. Which leads me to think: is rhetoric really so prevalent that it seeps into even the most seemingly trivial pages of a fashion magazine?
While rhetoric may be considered the study of effective language, I believe that advertisements also employ visual rhetoric to draw us in. Pictures can just as easily use pathos, logos, and ethos to convey meaning- after all, most ads are largely picture-based. There's a reason swimming suit ads always picture incredibly skinny, beautiful girls.
But if you look deeper, you’ll find more hidden elements of rhetoric. The ad also displays a sort of professional ethos. Everything about the ad is sleek, slim, and glossy. The primary colors are blue, white, and black and combine to showcase a sense of professionalism and class. The ad thus draws on ethos to prove to us that they are an upper class brand and pathos to convince us to buy the suits so that we can live this life. So while we may think we've seen the obvious, in your face rhetoric, there's always a chance that if you dig deeper, you'll find even more variations.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Truly Presidential Address
First of all, John F. Kennedy's composure while speaking to the people was nothing short of presidential. His voice rang out, cutting through the air with crisp and precise sentences. His tone paralleled his words--promising change and pledging the greatness of America. He was able to maintain eye contact for the most part with his audience, the American people- essential, as his whole speech was designed to exhort them into unity and action.
The speech itself largely uses pathos and ethos. Kennedy used pathos to draw on American nationalism, especially when he famously called Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This appeal to emotion was especially effective as America was in the midst of the Cold War. One of the fundamentals of American ideology is freedom--the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this instance, Kennedy used ethos to appeal to the morals of this ideology, declaring,
“To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right [emphasis added].”
Kennedy’s diction constantly used the word “we-” "we shall, we forge, we dare-" effectively grouping Americans together as being on a mission rather than isolating himself as the leader while the people sat back and watched. His goal was to unite the people, not so that they could simply follow his lead. His speech also used rhetorical devices such as alliteration, to allow his words to flow more smoothly (“ whether it wishes us well or ill…”).
Combined, these examples enabled John F. Kennedy's speech to become so effective that even today, fifty years later, it is still just as memorable.You can see for yourself here-
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