ANALYZING THE RHETORICAL SPEECH TEXT
Analyzing Characters
Speakers create personas, or characters, for themselves, their audiences, and others within their
speeches. Speakers must particularly attend to their own persona so as to build credibility with
the audience.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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What characters did the speaker develop in the text?
How did the speaker depict them?
How were they related to one another?
How much and what type of agency did the speaker attribute to the characters?
How might these characterizations have attracted the audience, built the speaker's
credibility, and/or helped the speaker accomplish his or her purpose?
How did this strategy relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the text
Analyzing Place
Speakers choose specific places in which to situate the characters in their speeches, similar to how
authors set their characters in scenes. "Place" can refer to many different things; therefore, read
the text you have chosen for the sense of "place" that the speaker seemed to feature in the speech.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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What place did the speaker refer to in the text?
How did the speaker characterize the place?
What was emphasized about it?
If more than one place was mentioned, how did the speaker relate the places to each
other?
How might the places in the speech have influenced the audience?
How did this strategy relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the text?
Analyzing Time
Speakers strategically incorporate the concept of "time" into their speeches. As a critic, explore
whatever types, or dimensions, of time seem to be featured by the speaker.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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How did the speaker incorporate time into the text?
What times, specific or general, did the speaker refer to, explicitly or implicitly?
How did the speaker strategically employ these times to influence the audience?
How did this strategy relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the text?
Analyzing Argumentation
Borrowing from Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's definition, "an argument is a claim or a conclusion
backed by one or more reasons or justifications." Two basic types of reasons are those associated
with emotion and those associated with logic. Speakers can evoke emotions as "reasons" by
appealing to the audience members' values, loyalties, or commitments. For an example of such
emotion-oriented reasons, read the "Factsheet" on declawing cats published on the website for the
animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
(http://www.peta-online.org/mc/facts/).
In appealing to readers' commitments to self-defense and against cruel and unusual punishment,
PETA personifies cats; cats are presented as human-like. As humans, they are entitled to the same
rights as their owners. Thus, the rhetoric elicits deep-seated commitments, which function as
emotionally-oriented "reasons" for accepting the conclusion that declawing "should not be
practiced."
Speakers can also provide logically-oriented reasons in efforts to make their claims appear
reasonable. The PETA factsheet again provides an excellent example of such appeals.
The entire document is designed to appear logical. "Factsheet," the very title of the document,
presents the text as factually true, unbiased. The text cites several "experts," which function to
authorize the claims forwarded. Information concerning the surgical procedure appears
medically-informed and, by implication, scientifically true. These logically-oriented appeals
provide reasons to accept PETA's position against declawing. The reasons invite readers to
perceive the document as "fact" rather than a persuasive argument.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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What types of reasons did the speaker use to argue his or her claims?
What types of evidence were included?
How did the speaker's reasons and evidence interact with the audience's common beliefs
and values?
How were the reasons made to appear reasonable?
How did this strategy of argumentation relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the
text?
Analyzing Structure
The way speakers choose to structure, or organize, their speeches can function rhetorically.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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How did the speaker structure the text?
How did the text flow from one topic or idea to the next?
What method of organization was used?
How might this organizational strategy have influenced the audience?
How did this strategy relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the text?
You may find it helpful to create an outline of the speech to answer these questions.
Analyzing Style
Because it refers to whatever is distinctive about a rhetorical speech text's language, style can
include numerous elements, such as grammar, syntax, sentence length and structure, figures of
speech, word choice, and similar such aspects. One way to approach style is to analyze the speech
in terms of its degree of formality, precision, literalness, and/or redundancy.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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What style did the speaker develop in the speech?
What in the text created this style?
Did the style alter during the speech?
What type of tone did the style establish, and how might this strategy have influenced
the audience?
How did this strategy relate to other rhetorical strategies at work in the text?
Analyzing Delivery
If possible, it is important that you consider the speaker's delivery of the text that you have
chosen to critique. No matter how eloquent the words on the page, a speaker's verbal and
nonverbal delivery of the words can significantly impact their effect.
Questions to Prompt Your Analysis:
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Where and how did the speaker deliver the text?
How did the speaker strategically attempt to use his or her delivery to advance his or her
position?
Did the speaker's delivery impact the speech in some unintended way?
How might the audience have responded to the delivery?
How did the delivery relate to other rhetorical strategies at work within the text?