Strategies of Persuasion and Genres of Rhetorical Communication

Posted on Sep 10, 2024 in Language

UNIT 3

4. Strategies of Persuasion

Classical rhetoric (Greeks) distinguished between two types of rhetorical communication:

Communication limited to mere eloquence in a predominantly aesthetic sense, which, according to their thinking, implies the renunciation of genuine persuasive intentions.
Communication that seeks to influence the receiver by making them change their attitude or opinion. This is the type that truly tries to persuade.

However, it is not always certain whether a speaker has a persuasive purpose. Therefore, we can say that all communication is persuasive. It may be just in an intellectual sense, but the sender always seeks complicity, approach, acceptance, or the enjoyment of the receiver with their speech.

In this sense, it can be said that there is a more rational persuasion and another that is more emotional.

Genres of Rhetorical Communication

1. Aristotle’s Four Kinds of Persuasive Communication

Aristotle established four different kinds of persuasive communication that can occur according to:

The situation in which the speeches are pronounced.
The time to which the speeches relate.
The aims pursued by the speech.
The attitude of the listener.

2. Aristotle’s Three Classic Genres or Types of Speech

Judicial (or forensic)
Deliberative (or parliamentary)
Demonstrative (or Epideictic)

3. Judicial (or Forensic)

Characteristic of a trial, used by both the prosecution and the defense.
The receiver of the speech is a judge, judges, or juries, who issue a judgment on past events.
This genre emphasizes argumentative techniques that expose and demonstrate; therefore, the docere strategy prevails.

4. Deliberative (or Parliamentary)

The speech was given before a popular assembly gathered to discuss and decide on further actions that the sender encouraged or discouraged.
The sender had to persuade the assembly about:
- The usefulness and applicability of the proposed determination to achieve.
- Or the need to discourage it if it is useless, harmful, or impossible.
To gain the assembly’s favor, it was necessary to clearly establish the persuasive strategy.
In this genre, docere, movere, and delectare play an important role in each part of the speech to achieve the ultimate goal.

5. Demonstrative (or Epideictic)

It does not require judgments or final decisions. Its purpose is to please and delight the audience by remembering people and events.
There are two possibilities in this kind of strategy: praise and criticism.
The communicator will work on their oratorical capabilities to please and rejoice the receivers.
It seems clear that in this type of discourse, we can see both delectare and movere mixed, because through liking, the sender seeks the change of attitude of the receiver (or, in advertising, concerning the offered product).

Advertising as a Rhetorical Genre

Advertising is considered another genre: the quintessential modern genre and the most recent application of persuasive strategies.

Modern Aspects of Rhetorical Genres

The modern aspect of these genres is that they can be carried out in other settings and media.

Regarding the stage or location, the main participants in this rhetorical communication (sender, receiver, and message) do not coincide in time or space.
On the support, a change is also seen in the transmission channel: from orality to writing or even to audiovisual and digital.

The Aptum

The aptum requires that the communicator balances and properly weighs content, expression, and the communicative situation of the public.

The sender should consider:

The matter itself.
The structure of the speech.
The persuasive goals.
Related ethical standards.
Expressions and speech pronouncement.
The situation or context in relation to themselves and the receivers.

The aptum is, therefore, the first consideration that a speaker should attend to carry out their rhetorical communication.

Puritas or Grammatical Correctness

If the aptum refers to the adequacy of the content of the speech (both to the persuasive intent as, among other things, the public and contact in which it develops), the puritas focuses on verbal adequacy, on correct verbal aspects: grammatical rules and their actual use.
It is basically the action of mastering the language (this is prior to any rhetorical communication).

Perspicuitas or Ideological and Linguistic Clarity

Kurst Sang says that the criterion of perspicuitas is the “clarity of communication,” the quality of understandability of the speech from the point of view of the ideas themselves and their formulation.”
By formulation, we understand “how to translate the ideas with maximum persuasive effectiveness in each specific case.”
The objective proposed by this criterion is to ensure that the receiver receives the speech as closely as possible to how the communicator conceived it.

The perspicuitas, therefore, refers not only to the clarity of ideas and language but also to the cohesion and extension of the discursive arguments. There is a need for consistency in rhetorical communication as a whole.

Ornatus or Aesthetics of Speech

It is a misconception that the ornatus is limited to the embellishment of the speech.
This rhetorical quality criterion contributes to the expressive way that communication uses with the speaker intending to persuade them.

We will study aspects related to this criterion in some other session, but the ornatus is part of one of the stages of speech development called elocutio or verbal formulation.

Has stylistic implications, and its purpose is to get persuasion through linguistic beauty: it reflects the “beauty” of thought & it highlights virtues of a good speaker such as the clarity of ideas.
It is in this aspect where all the so-called rhetorical devices (figures and tropes) come into play.
The main function of ornatus is to delight the listener, surprise them, and seek enjoyment through innovative resources and linguistic strategies used to capture and hold the attention (both intellectual and emotional) of the public.