pathos

Examples of pathos in the following topics:

• Persuasive Speeches

  • The core of a persuasive speech is pathos: appealing to and resonating with the audience's feelings and emotions.
  • In order for the pathos contained in a persuasive speech to be effective, the speaker has to understand the audience he/she is addressing.To be convincing, the speaker has to take into account the behavioral motivations and foundational beliefs of the audience.
  • In addition to pathos, persuasive speeches contain appeals to ethos and logos.

• Producing an Emotional Appeal

  • In general, an effective way to create emotional appeal is to use words that have a lot of pathos associated with them.
  • Pathos is an emotional appeal used in rhetoric that depicts certain emotional states.
  • Some examples of "pathos" charged words include: strong, powerful, tragic, equality, freedom, and liberty.

• Using Different Kinds of Appeals

  • For the purposes of this section, we will explore the two broadest and prevalent appeals, logos and pathos.

• Defining Emotional Appeal

  • Pathos represents an appeal to the audience's emotions.
  • Pathos is a communication technique used most often in rhetoric (where it is considered one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and logos), and in literature, film, and other narrative art.
  • The pathos of a speech or writing is only ultimately determined by the audience.

• Speeches for Special Occasions

  • They may contain a use of pathos that aims to convince the audience to be happy, possibly by being comedic.
  • However, they may use a pathos intended to make the audience reflective, as in a speech given at a memorial service.

• Ethical Usage

  • Speeches grounded in the principles of rhetoric focus on three types of rhetorical appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos.
  • While logos and pathos appeal to reason and emotion, respectively, ethos takes on a decidedly different approach entirely.

• Defining a Persuasive Speech

  • While ethos is an essential part of a persuasive speech, pathos and logos are usually combined to form the best possible argument.
  • Pathos, emotional appeals, are appeals that seek to make the audience feel a certain way so that they will accept a conclusion.
  • A successful speaker will do their best to establish strong ethos with their audience, and combine pathos and logos to form the best possible argument.

• Informative vs. Persuasive Speeches

  • If the purpose is simply to provide information, then the speech will likely rely less on pathos and more on evidence, statistical data, or charts and graphs.
  • For example, when giving an informative speech, the speaker must take into account not only the audience's familiarity with any technical terms, but also what sort of pathos he or she may want to use.
  • However, the State of the Union also contains heavy pathos that is intended to make citizens feel confident about the President's handling of the nation and hopeful about the future.

• Defining an Informative Speech

  • An informative speech should rely less on pathos, which is an appeal to the emotions of the audience and an important component of persuasive speeches.

• Build Credibility

  • Aristotle, the classical Greek philosopher and rhetorician, established three methods of proof—logos, ethos, and pathos.
  • Logos is the logical development of the message, pathos is the emotional appeals employed by the speaker, and ethos is the moral character of the speaker as perceived by the audience.