Quora Answer: How Can Rhetorical Devices be Used to Enhance Speech?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How can rhetorical devices be used to enhance a speech?”

A rhetorical device is a manner of speech that conveys, to the audience, a specific meaning through a turn of phrase, the choice of words, or the patter of the words used, with the goal of persuading them to consider an argument, by provoking an emotional or considered response according to the manner the idea is conveyed.

There are, in general, four categories of rhetorical devices, based on how they appeal to the audience: Logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos.  The first three are the triad of the Toastmasters programme, and form the foundation of speeches.  Kairos is a philosophical approach that is not utilised in Toastmasters because it is an advanced concept that requires an understanding of philosophy, and theology, and to elicit an appropriate response through what is held to be timeless Divine Wisdom.  It is a special appeal to authority.  In Toastmaster settings, they programme shies away from discussions on politics and religion, and that is why this is not emphasised.

Logos is the use of logic to appeal to the audience.  It addresses the hubris of people in believing that they are logical in a crowd.  This requires creating cogent, coherent arguments, that link within the structure of the speech, and then utilising specific rhetorical devices, such as alliterations, amplification, and anaphora, to subtly emphasis specific points of the argument, to move the audience towards a desired response.

Pathos is an appeal to the audience’s emotions, which is most effective because the larger the crowd, the more emotional it tends to be, and the more easily manipulated.  This requires building an argument based on an event or people, with the use of rhetorical devices such as allusions, and idioms, to provoke emotion, and then using devices such as alliterative triads to emphasise an appropriate call to action.

Ethos is the use of the characteristic tenet or values of the audience to provoke an action or reaction.  It is also used to enhance the speaker’s credibility, and to create a bond between the speaker, and the audience.  It is an appeal to authority, specific to the reputation and credibility of the speaker.  As such, this speech must be on a subject matter where the speaker is viewed to be an authority of, or the speaker has to establish that authority.  One of the simpler ways to do this is to build the argument from a quote by a recognised authority of the subject being addressed.  This is “borrowing” credibility.  For such a speech to work, other rhetorical devices such as self-referencing allusions are required to create the impression or illusion that the speaker and the audience are on the same side of the issue, although this may not be true.

Kairos is an appeal to the timeliness of the argument, which alludes to either an Eternal Divine, or an eternal value of the audience, or what the audience holds to be eternal.  These are the types of speeches that make heavy use of proverbs, fables, and morality tales.

However, it must be emphasised that no rhetorical device is limited to one or more form of creating a cogent argument, or a persuasive speech.  This is limited only by the ability of the speaker, and his creativity.  A rhetorical device is an enhancer to speech, one deployed to emphasise a point, misdirect from an inconvenient fact, or to mask a weak argument for or against a specific position.  It is also deployed to make parts of a speech resonate with the audience, so that the quotable portion propagates the idea.