Lehi's Discourse

Kurt has written a retorical analysis about Lehi's Discourse in 2 Nephi 2. Kurt explains how Lehi uses Logos in his speech. I would like to discuss how he uses Pathos. In the beginning of the Chapter one sees that Lehi is speaking to his son Jacob. He starts out be telling him a few things that has happened in Jacob's life and how it has helped him. Verses one and two reads, "And now, Jacob, I speak unto you: Thou art my first-born in the days of my tribulation in the wilderness. And behold, in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow... Jacob, my first-born in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain". First-born can mean that one receives special rights or privledges. He tells Jacob basically that he knows it has been had for him, dealing with his brothers in the wilderness. He then states that it will be for his good. So that it will help him. He is trying to appeal to his emotions, which Lehi successfully achieves or so it seems to be that way. His son lived a righteous life. Jacob already knows that life is hard and that he is the first-born, but Lehi restates it and explains to him how good he is.

In verse three it states, "Wherefore, thy soul shall be blessed, and thou shalt dwell safely with thy brother, Nephi; and thy days shall be spent in the service of thy God. Wherefore, I know that thou art redeemed, because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer". He tells him he will be safe with his brother Nephi, who is a very righteous son of Lehi, who has been a leader for Jacob, as he was growing up. He tells Jacob that he knows that he will be redeemed through the Lord Jesus Christ. If I were Jacob I would feel special and want to listen to my father Lehi because he is declaring how good of a person I am.
Kurt explains basically the rest in his analysis to this great discourse. He explains the Logos, which Lehi used after he had used Pathos to reach his son.

Emotional Appeal to help AIDS in India

I read Mike's analysis of Melinda French Gates's article titled "AIDS and India". I feel like her use of emotional appeal as a means of persuasion deserves further analysis.

Melinda is writing to the people in the Pacific Northwest who subscribe to the Seattle Times. Her goal is to motivate the readers to help out the AIDS situation in Africa through donations, not necessarily to her own foundation. She wants the people to be helped and if she’s not the one doing it she’s fine with that as long as someone else is. The readers know very little, if anything, at all about AIDS in India. It isn’t affecting their everyday lives because they live in Seattle or it’s surrounding areas. Much like the commercials on TV that ask for money to feed starving children in Africa, she has to make the reader feel sorry for the victim and convince him that it will really be used to help the people and will be effective.

The Pacific Northwest is a very liberal region. Seattle is the only major US city to perform a city-wide strike through labor unions in order to receive higher wages. They are more accepting and protective of gay and lesbian rights than the rest of the country. Oregon and Washington were the first two states to allow for assisted suicide, where someone in bad health is given the tools to kill themselves, in the United States, the only other being Montana. In the past, it was known as a hotspot for socialists. Perhaps even more pertinent to this subject is that Washington passed a law in 2007 that made comprehensive sex education, one that includes the use of condoms and other contraceptives, mandatory in any school that wishes to teach sex education. This shows that a majority of the people are in support of teaching about condom use in order to prevent STDs. In other areas where the religious right has a larger influence they might be more interested in how to teach the Indian people fidelity in marriage and abstinence.

Melinda isn’t writing to everyone in the Pacific Northwest however, she is writing specifically to subscribers of the Seattle Times. The demographics for the Seattle Times show us that approximately sixty-eight percent of the population has an income of fifty thousand dollars or more and nearly fifty percent make seventy five thousand or more. The Seattle Times reaches at least seventy percent of both groups. Seventy-three percent of the population owns their own home and the Times reaches over seventy percent of those people as well. This information suggests that a large portion of these readers are well established and have the capacity to donate when they feel inclined to do so. Melinda’s foundation supports their ideology on the use of condoms to prevent STDs and they have money to contribute, she just needs to make them feel like they should help and that their money will help. Melinda uses emotional appeal through positive, successful examples as a means to create sympathy for those affected and to illustrate that the program is working.

Diction is her first technique to create sympathy in her reader. Phrases such as "crippling poverty," "AIDS catastrophe," "the epidemic," and “disaster” appear in the first paragraphs. Her use of these words paint a dismal landscape where AIDS infects men, women, and children from North to South and East to West. Often times these words seem almost unavoidable. Nobody can escape an epidemic. Everyone is damaged in a catastrophe. Being crippled by poverty makes it seem insurmountable. This word choice becomes more effective when she cites projections that "as many as 20 million Indians could be infected by the end of the decade--that's more than twice the population of New York City." The reader is now rather sickened and softened so that he wants to learn more.

Just as important are the words she doesn’t use. 4 million and 20 million are pretty big numbers until the reader realizes that if India’s population is rounded DOWN to 1 billion, 4 million and 20 million make up a meager .4 and 2 percent of the whole population respectively. Doesn’t sound quite like an unavoidable epidemic when you put it in those terms but the reader was too distracted by thoughts of all of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Philadelphia dying of AIDS to realize it.

Melinda then capitalizes on the created sympathy by shifting the argument; in the fifth paragraph she says, “A range of HIV-prevention measure are working in India.” The situation is dire, but not unconquerable. She follows with a story about a “sex worker” (prostitute) and how these measures have helped her. Mike already discussed how her choice of the word “sex worker” instead of “prostitute” “appeals to the reader’s ability to pity.” Visualizing a person fighting AIDS in India makes the situation more real and immediate to the reader. Nobody wants to throw their money or efforts into a hopeless black hole where the people won’t help themselves. The progress made by these individuals assures the possible donator his money will be used effectively to help people who are trying to do it themselves but don’t have the means.

She uses another concrete example, this time about truck drivers who have been educated about condoms. This example does the same as its predecessor, allowing the reader to see that his money will be put to good use. This time however she focuses on the fact that these people knew nothing about AIDS before the people got there. Many of the readers instantly will feel sorry for the wives of these truck drivers and the sympathy grows even more after thinking that it if the husband wasn’t educated about AIDS he could contract it and then pass it on to the family. This creates the need for a foundation like hers. The reader sees that there is more work to do in order to reach all of India so his money is needed just as much as it will be effective in educating those men. These examples allow the people to feel good because they can see that progress is being made and a lot of times people want to feel good and shy away from bigger problems they may face.

The next endeavor at creating emotional appeal, “a woman whose husband dies of AIDS is often blamed for his death, and thrown out of the home with her children” illustrated again how dire the situation can be at times but after reading this the reader may question, “How can a woman be thrown out of her own home if her husband is dead?” because he probably doesn’t know that extended families live together in India. An explanation of the social background would have been helpful. Melinda continually uses sympathetic stories to create sympathy in the reader.

She closes her article with the donation and call to action pitch. In her pitch she says, “rich countries” in an off-handish way that reminds the reader that they may not have everything they want but they have a lot more than anybody else. The most effective portion of her pitch was that she provided other organizations that could be donated to, which shows that she’s more interested in helping the people rather than getting more money for donations. She doesn’t care if she is the one helping or if it is somebody else. She concludes by bringing back her concrete example of the sex worker “women like Gita really shall overcome” which is her last attempt to make the reader feel connected to these people and that they can help them. Her use of the phrase “shall overcome” is an allusion to the song “We Shall Overcome” which was a very popular song associated with the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights movement was very successful and now she is throwing her cause along with that one, something positive, something that will work. This was her last move to use emotion to sway her audience into action, all the while assuring that their efforts would be effective

Are You Healthy?

Glen Rudolphi did an analysis regarding Health care from an article by Jean S. Fraser. He emphasized the use of pathos in Fraser's article, "On Rethinking Health Care in California." Whether or not pathos is used is not the question. Glen uses Fraser's example of the employee who has a wife with "multiple sclerosis and may lose his health care coverage." He says that everyone feels sorry for someone who is sick. I agree that this example does bring out our emotions; however, this is one of the few emotional examples that Fraser uses in her article. She could have used aweful stories that develop much stronger sympathetic feelings. I heard someone say how Barrack Obama used a story of a girl who ate only mustard and bread to be able to pay for her childrens' needs. The immediate health repercussions aren't aweful, but the idea that she decided to do this makes Americans want to see changes.

Fraser's one solid example of pathos might not build enough sympathy towards those affected by health care problems to back her solutions or instigate reform. She uses some other ideas to bring out some emotion. For example, "At this rate, I might have to let go of one employee just to keep health insurance for the other two." She also states, "to pay for insurance inflation they should shift more of the cost to his employees, one of whom has a wife with multiple sclerosis."These types of problems bring Americans into attention of an author. Fraser tries to paint the scene of businesses as so pitiful because of health care problems. She makes the reader feel sorry for all health care workers and patients. This type of phrase helps paint the picture: "Insurance costs him $41,000 per year," and "Even at this rate, his employees still have co-pays for all doctor's services." Saying "even" paying this much we still have co-pays for "all" doctor's visits brings feelings into the readers head. Such feelings could be "unfair," "still?," or "that's outrageous." If these are the circumstances we are faced with then the reader feels an automatic conviction that something should change in health care. We feel this way because most Americans have been affected by the rapid incline in unemployment. If this can be fixed by reforming health care then the American people are behind it. While all these explanations are true we must recognize that there are much more deliberate ways to bring out pathos in this article. The description could be much more bleak than it is.

On the other hand she might have wanted to portray a more subtle scene. In some cases building up pathos too much can be to the authors detriment. In comparing Fraser's article with James Lovelock's article on Nuclear Energy, I feel distracted by Lovelock's use of extreme pathos. He says that "20,000 people died from overheating in Europe last summer," without citing his source. It seems slightly farfetched. Fraser seems more believable because of her soft use of pathos than Loveock does. I believe that she could provide two or three more examples throughout her article to remind the reader that the solutions presented are going to help people. In analiyzing the article we need to remember that there are different audiences that will read this. If she was targeting a realistic, but educated audience I believe her use of pathos could be perfect. If she is going for an audience that needs to feel the scene of health care problems to be convinced she should provide more emotionally provoking evidence.

Global Warming and Eating: Linking with Language Tools

An article published by Jennifer Wilkins and Anna Lappe addressed the link between global warming and the way Americans eat today. To make their point the authors use several language tools that invoke sympathy for the planet and arouse a desire to eat better in order to save it.

Personification was well implemented in this article to give our planet an identity. Word usage such as, "The danger the planet faces..."(par. 2) and "...we'll all be healthier and so will our planet"(par. 16). The planet obviously is not able to literally "face" anything, but by implying that the Earth is going up against something or seeing some kind of opposition causes us to naturally feel sympathetic. The Earth, though treacherous in things such as natural disasters, is often seen as an unarmed, helpless woman that can't defend herself from those who pollute and damage her. The second sentence helps us identify that our actions will help protect the Earth, and this will not only make our motherly-benefactor healthier, but we will be better off as well.

Metaphors with imagery also helped make the point of needed opposition towards global warming through eating healthier. The phrase, "...driving an 18-wheeler to the moon and back 13 times"(par. 5), was used to describe how far New Jersians drive, burning fossil fuel and causing global warming, to satiate "fresh tomato carving[s]." Though completely illogical, driving to the moon in an 18-wheeler creates certain images and connections in the reader's brain: 18-wheelers require a lot of diesel fuel which creates extremely toxic fumes; the moon is extremely far away and driving there and back 13 times would amount to a large, almost incomprehensible distance. Therefore, it is understood that citizens of New Jersey drive significant distances, warming the globe, all because they want to eat fresh tomatos. Put in this light, the reader would see New Jersey's global warming participation as something ridiculous and easily avoidable.

More imagery was used in order to describe how much land is used to grow corn for corn-syrup that goes into highly consumed junk foods in relating the size of the fields to "twice the size of Rhode Island"(par. 13). Though Rhode Island is known as the smallest state in the U.S., saying that any amount of detrimentally-used land is larger than a state immedtiatly wows the reader and puts into persepective that the earth is being misused to feed us junk food.

Citation
Wilkins, Jennifer and Lappe, Anna. "Think Globally, Eat Locally," Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 17, 2007. Web, 23 Sept. 2009.

Mrs. Bill Gates on AIDS

IN 2004, an article called AIDS and India was published in The Seattle Times by Melinda French Gates, the wife of billionaire Bill gates.

Ethos
There are examples of ethos on many different levels in Mrs. Gates' editorial. One is her name. It isn't clear that she is Bill Gates' wife until the end of the article. It is as if mentioning the name of her famous husband gives her some kind of credibility or that her opinions matter more than an average person's. But her hesitation to admit that her husband is a billionaire helps her in two ways. One way is that she avoids offending those who may not like Bill Gates and/or Microsoft, thus broadening her audience of readers. She develops a trust with the reader by concealing her identity until the very end. The second way her name helped her was soley dependant on how she reavealed herself and her identity to the reader. Her sentence of admittance was the following: "Bill and I started our foundation based on the firm belief that every child in our world deserves a chance at good health"(par. 18). Now, the reader understands who she is credibility is not lost, but gained because the context in which Mrs. Gates reveals herself is that of charity.

Despite her name, Mrs. Gates established herself as a "regular person" by writing in a way that
helps the reader identify her as someone normal. Her words and phrases are simple and to the point. She writes in the first-person as if it is two normal people having a regular conversation, yet she maintains the air of knowing a little more on the issue at hand, the problem of AIDS in India, than you do.

She establishes her credibility of knowledge on the issue because she traveled to India with her husband and saw firsthand the problems with the AIDS epidemic in India. Also, her use of statistics and quotes of experts with whom she spoke give her argument substantial credibility and believability.

Pathos
The expression of Pathos in this article was ultimately through word choice. In India, the AIDS epidemic has a lot to do with the "sex trade." Mrs. Gates refers to the women who sell themselves to men as "sex workers" rather than "prostitutes." The word "sex worker" gives the impression that the women were forced to make a living this way, while the word "prostitute" arouses very negative feelings and presumptions. She appeals to the reader's ability to pity.

Mrs. Gates also used the word "empower" in the context of educating these sex workers on AIDS and HIV. If women have to be empowered, that means they are powerless. The idea of women being helpless and powerless definitely induces certain emotions that wouldn't be there if she had said "educate prostitutes."

The last major word choice was the implementation of "we" and "us." Mrs. Gates made it seem like we were on a team, that we were all in this together, and that each of us not only has a responsibility to feel sorry for these AIDS victims, but also act to help them.

Logos
Mrs. Gates through logos connects chains of opinions, thoughts, and arguments in order to help us see implications in her argument.

In the very first paragraph, she says, "India's emergence as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, with a highly skilled workforce and climbing literacy rates, has fueled optimism that the country could one day overcome its crippling poverty. But as I recently saw firsthand, India is on the brink of an AIDS catastrophe that could undermine the country's potential for progress"(par. 1).

This is the main connection she wants the reader to make. India is a growing, improving country which can potentially help with the problem of poverty. However, progress towards solving the poverty problem is stunted by the "AIDS catastrophe."

Mrs. Gates does very well in providing evidence for the terrible effects of AIDS, but she does not have sufficient facts, statistics, etc. to support her claim in India being an up-and-coming economic power. Had she provided information on rates of growth in annual income per capita or any other economic measures, it would have been more convincing that India is becoming stronger. That would have provided a great contrast which would facilitate our understanding that AIDS is indeed threatening a growing nation and something must be done.

Though she fails to connect well her primary argument, Mrs. Gates does succeed in helping us make other connections. For example, we know that Microsoft and Bill Gates are rich, powerful entities. However, without evidence, no one would make the assumption that Bill Gates is charitable. Mrs. Gates' mentioning that the Bill Gates foundation has donated $200 M to fight AIDS in India link these two idea for the reader: Bill Gates, though rich, is a philanthropist.

She also helps us understand the "sex workers." The ideas that seemingly have no link are 1)women in developing countries are not educated, 2) in such countries there is bound to be prostitution, which we sometimes see as the woman's own choice, and 3) rate of AIDS infections can be decreased significantly. What Mrs. Gates does is help us see that lack of education forces women into the sex trade. That ignorance carries over into the sex trade itself and as a result,"shockingly, 70 percent of Indian women have never even heard of AIDS." But, once the women are educated, there is a drastic increase in HIV-prevention.

The most powerful connection that she makes is related to how the reader can make a difference. The bad effects of AIDS in India caused by poverty and lack of education can be combatted by the efforts of outsiders. Mrs. Gates proves this by stating, "Individuals can make a difference, too — there are things that each of us can do to help stop AIDS around the world. For example, you can educate your friends and family about the disease, volunteer for a local AIDS organization, or ask your lawmakers to increase funding for global AIDS programs. You can also donate to organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which supports AIDS programs in the hardest-hit countries throughout the world"(par. 20).
Citation
Melinda French Gates, "AIDS and India," The Seattle Times, April 11,2004.

The Influence of Rightous Women

In Elder Uchtdorf’s Address to the Church, he exclaims the importance of women. By using pathos he is able to reach each individual sister on a personal level. He first establishes the principle of womanhood by giving biblical examples of women such as Mary, Eve, or Elizabeth. He explains the crucial role these women play in history.
He then creates pathos by speaking directly to the women of the church. This way everyone feels like she is being spoken to. He describes women from the past above and relates to the women in the audience that they too can make a huge difference. Every person needs to feel needed, so he then asserts, “We call upon the women of the Church to stand together for righteousness. They must begin in their own homes. They can teach it in their classes. They can voice it in their communities.”
Towards the end of the introduction he expresses his love for the sisters of the church, therefore giving him credibility because each knows that he genuinely cares for each of them.
Most individuals like an invite to be better. His tone in pathos lets each sister know that she is able to achieve the Lord’s goal for her. He then gives each sister a challenge,” Sisters, your example in seemingly small things will make a big difference in the lives of our young people. The way you dress and groom yourselves, the way you talk, the way you pray, the way you testify, the way you live every day will make the difference. This includes which TV shows you watch, which music you prefer, and how you use the Internet. If you love to go to the temple, the young people who value your example will also love to go. If you adapt your wardrobe to the temple garment and not the other way around, they will know what you consider important, and they will learn from you.”
Each sister now feels the need to be better than before and change their lives. He speaks very persausive and on a personal level. He also relates special experiences he has hade over the years with significant women in his life.