Posted: December 3rd, 2015

Rhetorical Analysis (Blackfish documentary)

Rhetorical Analysis (Blackfish documentary)

700 words

What is a Rhetorical Analysis or Criticism?
A rhetorical analysis is a form of criticism (or close reading) that

employs the principles of rhetoric to examine the interactions between a text, an

author, and an audience. Rhetorical analysis may be applied to virtually any text

or image-a speech, an essay, an advertisement, a poem, a photograph, a web page,

even a bumper sticker. When applied to a literary work, rhetorical analysis regards

the work not as an aesthetic object but as an artistically structured instrument

for communication.
Basic Questions for Rhetorical Analysis
What is the rhetorical situation?
• What occasion gives rise to the need or opportunity for persuasion?
• What is the historical occasion that would give rise to the composition of this

text?
Who is the author/speaker?
• How does he or she establish ethos (personal credibility)?
• Does he/she come across as knowledgeable? Fair?
• Does the speaker’s reputation convey a certain authority?

What is his/her intention in speaking?
• To attack or defend?
• To exhort or dissuade from certain action?
• To praise or blame?
• To teach, to delight, or to persuade?
Who make up the audience?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What values does the audience hold that the author or speaker appeals to?
• If this is a work of fiction, what is the nature of the audience within the

fiction?
What is the content of the message?
• Can you summarize the main idea?
• How does the author or speaker appeal to reason? To emotion?
What is the form in which it is conveyed?
• What is the structure of the communication; how is it arranged?
• What oral or literary genre is it following?
• What figures of speech (schemes and tropes) are used?
• What kind of style and tone is used and for what purpose?
• How does the form correspond with the content?
Does the message/speech/text succeed in fulfilling the author’s or speaker’s

intentions?
• For whom?
• Does the author/speaker effectively fit his/her message to the circumstances,

times, and audience?
• Can you identify the responses of historical or contemporary audiences?
What does the nature of the communication reveal about the culture that produced

it?
• What kinds of values or customs would the people have that would produce
this?
• How do the allusions, historical references, or kinds of words used place this in

a certain time and location?

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