The way rhetorical analysts now use the term appeals-meaning to plead or to please-has outstripped the available theories, particularly those derived from Aristotle. Indeed, Aristotle's ethos, pathos, and logos may not even be appeals in the modern sense. A revised model relates author and author positions to values in a triangulating relationship. Appeals also appear as techniques for working through varying media, not only media defined semiotically but also as forms of resistance related to cultural differences. Examples from criticism, film, and advertising provide a foundation for replacing a modes approach to rhetorical appeals with a genre approach.The model that dominates the current theory of rhetorical appeals comes from philosophical rhetoric: Aristotle's ethos, pathos, and logos. 1 Rhetorical theorists and analysts rarely define appeal without quickly resorting to this triad of technical terms. There's no entry for appeal in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition (Enos), for example, only separate treatments of ethos, pathos, and logos. I submit that in modern times, both in the practice of rhetorical analysis and in ordinary language, the Aristotelian terms fail to cover the variety of uses and the full suggestiveness of the concept and that the exclusive use of Aristotle's scheme often reduces the possibilities for understanding and interpreting the rhetorical strategies that could fall under the rubric of "appeal." I say it is time for a revised model. This essay provides the foundation for such a model, an approach to the concept of appeals that draws upon the rhetorical tradition but also reinterprets it for contemporary use. I build upon the structure of appeals suggested in the tradition deriving from Aristotle-preserving the triadic form in the relationships of author, audience, and values-but also look to the common definitions of appeal (primarily as a verb meaning more or less to plead or to please) in accounting for the movement of rhetorical participants toward common ground, the alignment of authors, audiences, and values. After an overview of the traditional and revised elements of the approach, I briefly apply the model in an analysis of examples from cultural criticism, popular film, and advertisement. My aim is to
The environmental impact statement (EIS) was created by the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 as a means of ensuring careful study of possible effects on the environment of projects involving public lands and as an aid to effective decisions regarding such projects. This article presents a case study involving the reading of several EISs produced by one government agency, the Bureau of Land Management. An analysis of these documents reveals that, to answer the leading question of rhetoricians in the field of technical writing—Is the document effective?—we must consider the social and cultural context of the EIS as well as the characteristics of the text, its organization and style. Simple notions of purpose and audience are ruled out. We must account for pragmatics as well as syntactics and semantics. The very category of “effectiveness” is conditioned by the historical and political forces that shape the EIS. An approach through genre theory is recommended.
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