A Sadness Shared, a Determination Undiminished - Essay Example

Paragraph A (900 words In the open letter d "A sadness shared, a determination undiminished" (Howard 2002) by John Howard to Brian Deegan, Howard starts off with an emotional appeal to his audience by establishing his argument through the use of pathos. Pathos is one of the rhetoric principles which Aristotle has introduced to study rhetoric discourse. According to Cockcroft and Cockcroft (1992 p.2) pathos refers to the use of emotions to engage and influence the reader. Howard first demonstrates his empathy towards Deegan by responding to the opposing views through the fact that he "understand(s) the grief" of a father. This approach, according to (Davis and McKay 1996, p. 100) first of all recounts the oppositions views, and also to help construct the writers own position. After having registered his stance, Howard delves right into the point of the argument he likes to defend by reiterating Deegans concern "what did my son die?" (Howard 2002, p.11). In fact at this point Howard continues with his pathos by registering contingent emotions through the description of the Islamic fanatics who bombed Bali using terms like "despise", "liberal", "open life of western nations" and "violent murder" to appropriate orientation between himself and the audience (Cockcroft & Cockcroft 1992, p.40; Hughes 1990, p. 33). By addressing Deegans concerns one by one Howard logically defends and establishes his ethos (the concept personality and stance as introduced by Aristotle). As a reader since we do not have any preconceive idea as to his character or emotions, these lines establish his personality as sympathetic, logical and as concerned as any Australian citizen (his audience). The essence of Howards argument lies in his statement that Australia is publicly and closely associated with the US since September 11, 2001 because of security reasons. However, in the next five to six paragraphs, Howard digresses from his stance. While he manages to use facts to establish logos, the "process of judgement" (Cockcroft and Cockcroft 1992, p. 10), he does not effectively make a case for his argument. According to Bakhtin (Andrews 1992, p.8), argument principles involve internal dialogic quality of discourse" which means both the sender and receiver must understand the elements of logic in an argument. In these paragraphs Howard digress from his logic, which loses the appeal he established at the beginning of the letter, thereby reduces his credibility. The loss of credibility is also because of Howards inability to find the correct analogy to defend his governments position and its association with the war on terror, or its association with the US. This is a false cause which adds to the undermining of his credibility (Cockcroft and Cockcroft 1992, p.94). In the next two paragraphs, Howard reverts to his use of pathos to narrate the context of the situation. Context of situation, according to Malinowski in Halliday and Hassan (1985, p. 10) refers to the environment in which the text is written. Howard refers to the condition of Deegans sons friend, and use it to appeal to the emotions of the readers again to make his point that the government has a different attitude towards victims of the Bali bombing. Similarly, he uses terms like "I agree" and "I feel for you" or "I am deeply saddened" to appeal to Deegans personal experience to establish his own arguments. according to Renking and von der Osten (1999, pp. 160) personal experience help deliver a more forceful argument and sometime supersede other kinds of evidence. By doing so Howard effectively develop the cause and effect model which Cockcroft and Cockroft thinks is most effective in developing arguments involving public persuasive discourse. The cause are the militants, the governments stance, and the war on terrors, while the effect is the Bali bombing which Deegan is experiencing in the form of his son’s death. In later paragraphs Howard however could not continue to effectively convince the reader of the governments best efforts to prevent events such as Bali bombing to recur. Instead he uses false analogy to appeal to the reader by using public emotions and prejudices of his audience. Terms like "young Australians" and "hostility" and "peaceful resolution" have been used to contradict Deegans arguments for the case of dissociating Australia from the war on terror. But Howard has not been able to achieve this premise because he uses the false analogy to address his audience. According to Renking and von der Osten "an appeal (to the crowd) arouses an emotional response by playing on the irrational fears and prejudices of the audience" (Renking and von der Osten 1999, p. 170). This Howard uses to play with the emotions of his audience. However, in doing Howard is guilty of establishing a faulty analogy. A faulty analogy is "the error of assuming that two circumstances or thing are similar in all important respects, when in fact they are not" (p.171). By using German and East Timor examples Howard clearly misjudge the intellect of his audience. Furthermore, by using generalization in the paragraph "History is strewn with examples of countries..." he could not re-establish his credibility but rather undermine his position as an appealing and empathetic authority on war, governance and policies. Consequently, Howard fails to establish his argument clearly but rather undermine his logic which he effectively started off with in the beginning of the letter. Paragraph B (300 words): In the open letter Howard presents the thesis that the government is associated with the countries of the world, especially the US in the war on terror because of the safety and security of the Australian people. He starts off by finding a common emotional appeal to his audience, and Deegan whose son died in the Bali bombing. He first establishes the context of the situation by addressing the gravity of the situation of war on terror but he does not effectively give evidence that the readers could relate to. Context of situation while give the participants a great deal of information about the communication which Howard wants to reveal in his letter (Halliday and Hasan 1985, p. 10) but it does not appeal to the reader. Indeed by referring to victims of far off land does not offer good emotional support or analogy which Australians could relate to. Instead, it shows that Howard has more empathy towards those authorities involved in the war on terror rather than on the victims of this war. Furthermore, following paragraphs Howards give very superficial reasoning for his not visiting the morgue of the victims, and his rationale for the war on terror which Australia is pursuing based on generalisation. Generalisation create false analogy which does not appeal to the reader, especially one as perceptive as Deegan who has experienced and been victimised by the war on terror. Consequently, instead of developing a convincing argument, he undermines his positioning. However, in writing the letter responding to Deegan, Howard also addresses Australians from the vast perspective. He convincingly disseminates "internal" information through the use of effective mode - a letter in a newspaper (Halliday and Hasan 1985). Its texts are largely consumed by the masses and different type of class of readers. Yet despite the effective choice, he does not make a convincing argument how he addresses the problem of war on terrorism and its effects on Australian citizens. Consequently, the writer is of the view that Howard though effectively uses mechanics of rhetoric discourse; he does not make a convincing case for his argument through statistics and historical facts. References Cockcroft, R. and Cockcroft, S. M. 1992, Persuading people: an introduction to rhetoric. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Davis, L. .and McKay, S. 1996, Structures and strategies: an introduction to academic writing. Macmillan Education Australia Halliday, M. and Hasan, R. 1985, Language, context and text: aspects of language in a social semiotic. Deakin University: Deakin University Press: Waurn Ponds, Vic. Howard, J. 2002, A sadness shared, a determination undiminished, The Australian, Tuesday 26 November, p. 11. Hughes, G. 1990, What is register? English Today, No. 22, pp. 32. Reinking, J. and von der Osten, R. 1999, Strategies for successful writing. Prentice Hall, pp. 156. Read More